Other forms: zips
A zip is the two rows of little teeth that lock together when you pull the tab, and to zip something is to close it that way. Your coat at the bus stop, the tent flap before bed, a suitcase you have to kneel on to shut.
British English calls the fastener a zip, American English calls it a zipper, and the verb is zip in both. You zip up a jacket and unzip it again, and the up is nearly always there. Zip also means to move fast, with the sound still inside it: cars zipping past, a message that zips across the world in a second. On a computer you zip files to squeeze them into one smaller package. And in American speech zip means nothing at all, as in we scored zip.
1verbzipTo fasten something with a zip.
“He zipped his jacket up to the chin and stepped outside.”
2nounslidingThe sliding fastener with two rows of teeth, used on clothes and bags; called a zipper in American English.
“The zip on my bag has come off its track.”
3verbmoveTo move somewhere very fast.
“A motorbike zipped past the queue of cars.”
4verbsqueezeTo squeeze computer files into one smaller package.
“Zip the folder before you email it.”
5nounnothingNothing at all; zero.
“We searched the whole flat and found zip.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Also accepted in games: zip up
Zip is the sound. Nothing older lies behind the word: it was made to imitate the short sharp noise of something moving fast. When the toothed fastener arrived, the noise it made under your fingers handed it the name.
imitative of the sound.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA