wiper

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

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪpə(ɹ)

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.
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:

     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:

     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.