wiper

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwaɪpɚ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪpə(ɹ)

From wipe +‎ -er.

wiper (plural wipers)

1. Someone who wipes.
   • 1842, Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”, in Dramatic Lyrics:

     So, Willy, let you and me be wipers / Of scores out with all men — especially pipers!

2. Something, such as a towel, that is used for wiping.
3. Something, such as a windscreen wiper, that is designed for wiping.
   • 2012, John Branch, “Snow Fall : The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Using her hands like windshield wipers, she tried to flick snow away from her mouth. When she clawed at her chest and neck, the crumbs maddeningly slid back onto her face. She grew claustrophobic.

4. A movable electric contact in some devices.
5. (nautical) A junior role in the engine room of a ship, someone who wipes down machinery and generally keeps it clean.
6. (obsolete, slang) An impertinent young man.
   • 1876, George Staunton Brodie, Vagrant Verses: And a Play, page 163:

     I ask you now, ain't honesty a-written on my feechurs? / I say the wiper should be scorched who'd rob his feller-creatures.

From white (bass) and striper.

wiper (countable and uncountable, plural wipers)

1. A hybrid fish variety artificially bred from eggs of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) fertilized with white bass (Morone chrysops) sperm, or the opposite combination.
   • 1983, Kansas Fish, Game Commission, “Fishing”, in Kansas Wildlife, page 16:

     As is the customary method for catching wipers at Keith Sebelius Reservoir, the trio was trolling with crank baits.

   • 2013 January 23, Texas State University San Marcos Department of Biology, “Morone saxatilis”, in Texas Freshwater Fishes‎^[2]:

     M. saxatilis X M. chrysops hybrids (wipers) are difficult to distinguish, showing intermediacy from parental types in basihyal tooth formation

   • 2021 April 23, Stephen Klobucar, “The history and mystery of hybrid fishes”, in Meat Eater‎^[3]:

     With good reason, wipers are among the most stocked hybrid gamefish in the United States. They won’t rival actual stripers for overall size, but wiper find a happy medium between the revered striper and the much smaller, pesky white bass.