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Of American-English origin, the adjective zip-lipped means:
– (literally) having the lips tightly closed, especially as a sign of suppressed emotion or determined reticence;
– (figuratively) uncommunicative, determinedly reticent.
This adjective occurs, for example, in the following from The third way for political interviews, by the British political journalist and broadcaster Andrew Rawnsley (born 1962), published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Monday 18th September 2006 [page 7, column 2]:
A lot of interviewing has become […] confrontational. The Rack School holds that the only way to interview politicians is to torture them until they blurt out the truth. It argues that you take a baseball bat to them and keep swinging. The trouble with this approach is that it may generate more noise than it does understanding. In reaction to the Rack, the politicians do not necessarily become more open. They can become risk-averse, zip-lipped androids.
In the adjective zip-lipped, the noun zip designates a fastening device for clothes, bags and other items, consisting of two flexible strips with interlocking projections of metal or plastic which can be closed or opened by pulling a sliding tag along them.
—Cf. the figurative use of the verb zip in commands such as zip your lip, meaning: keep your mouth closed so as not to divulge information.
—Cf. also ‘zipper problem’: meaning and origin.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the adjective zip-lipped that I have found:
1-: From the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune (San Luis Obispo, California, USA) of Friday 20th March 1942 [page 8, column 3]:
Ada Leonard 1 and her All-American Girl Revue and Harpo Marx 2, that gal-chasing, harp-twanging, piano-thumping zip-lipped pantomimist of the stage and screen, left San Luis Obispo today to fulfill a three-day engagement at Camp Roberts following a successful three-night stand at Camp San Luis Obispo.
1 Ada Leonard (1915-1997) was a U.S. bandleader.
2 Harpo Marx (Adolph Marx – 1888-1964) was a U.S. mime artist and harpist, and the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers.
2-: From the Greenville Daily Advocate (Greenville, Ohio, USA) of Friday 23rd July 1943 [page 5, column 3]:
Department Zip-Lipped About Army-Navy Game
Washington, July 23—(UP)—The War Department had “no comment” today regarding published reports that army authorities had approved the 1943 Army-Navy football classic for Nov. 27 at West Point.
3-: From the Daily Palo Alto Times and Palo Alto News and Palo Alto Shopping Review (Palo Alto, California, USA) of Friday 4th February 1944 [page 2, column 7]:
With the management of the Joshua Hendy Iron Works zip-lipped on the matter, Local 68 of the International Machinists’ Association seemed today to have won the first round in its fight to place journeymen-machinists in the last classification to be dismissed in case of layoffs.
4-: From The Duster (Kearney Army Air Field (KAAF), Kearney, Nebraska, USA) of Friday 1st June 1945 [page 10, columns 1 & 2]—ETO stands for European Theater of Operations:
Women Can’t Keep Secrets? Zip-Lipped WACs Won Medals
Washington.—Time-worn adage that women can’t keep secrets received a severe shattering in the Women’s Army Corps, some of whose members were given decoration medals for their highly secretive pre-invasion jobs in the ETO and in other war theaters.
5-: From the sports column Just Callin’ ’Em!, by Sam Tarleton, published in The Birmingham Post (Birmingham, Alabama, USA) of Wednesday 17th April 1946 [page 18, column 4]:
Cowboy Jones does all his talking with a bat, like Clark Henry, the Pirate optionee . . . They’re zip-lipped fellows . . . Jack Aland, who played for the Tide before going to war, will re-enter the Capstone next Fall.
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