Chip or Chips

A carpenter is known by his chips. A man is known to be a carpenter by the chips in his workshop, so the profession or taste of other men may be known by their manners or mode of speech. There is a broadcloth slang as well as a corduroy slang; a military, naval, school, and university slang.

Such carpenters, such chips. As the workman, so his work will be.

Brother Chip. Properly a brother carpenter, but in its extended meaning applied to anyone of the same vocation as ourselves. (Es nostrœ fasciœ Petronius.)

⁂ The ship’s carpenter is, at sea, commonly addressed as “chips.”

Saratoga chips. Potatoes sliced thin while raw, and fried crisp. Sometimes called chipped potatoes.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.