skipper

   An adaptation of the Dutch word for the captain of a ship, but normally used to the captain of a smaller vessel, such as a trading, merchant, or fishing boat. Examples of such usage occur in Stella, by Jan de Hartog.

   ‘Skipper’ is also used of the captain of a sports team, though in sports such as bowls and curling the abbreviated form ‘skip’ has now become the official form. This short form is likely to occur in other contexts where ‘skipper’ is being used if the speaker is on very friendly terms with the person addressed. Such other contexts include a civilian aircraft, where the chief pilot is either the captain or skipper.

   The term is also used by some policemen as a synonym for ‘captain’. The Choirboys, by Joseph Wambaugh, has: ‘Lieutenant Finque blushed and sat back down. He blinked and said “Hi Skipper” to Captain Drobeck.’ The men concerned are in the Los Angeles police force. In Like Any Other Man, by Patrick Boyle, the man addressed as Skipper is a bank manager, the speaker being his chief assistant. ‘Skipper’ is used as a variant of the usual ‘manager’ or ‘sir’ which the speaker uses. There is a special use of Skipper in Shakespeare’s The Tarning of the Shrew (2:i), where it is used by an old man to a young man in the sense of ‘one who skips’, a child.