_Meaning of "Clipper."_--I have more than once been asked the meaning and derivation of the term _clipper_, which has been so much in vogue for some years past. It is now quite a nautical term, at least among the fresh-water sailors: and we find it most frequently applied to yachts, steamers, fast-sailing merchant vessels, &c. And in addition to the colloquial use of the word, so common in praising the appearance or qualities of a vessel, it has become one quite recognised in the official description given of their ships by merchants, &c. Thus we often see an advertisement headed "the well-known clipper ship," "the noted clipper bark," and so forth. This use of the word, however, and its application to _vessels_, is somewhat wide of the original. The word in former times meant merely a hackney, or horse adapted for the road. The owners of such animals naturally valued them in proportion to their capabilities for such service, among which great speed in trotting was considered one of the chief: fast trotting horses were eagerly sought after, and trials of speed became the fashion. A horse then, which was pre-eminent in this particular, was termed a _clipper_, _i.e._ a _hackney, par excellence_. The original of the term is perhaps the following: _Klepper-lehn_ was a feudal tenure, so termed among the old Germans, where the yearly due from the vassal to the lord was a _klepper_, or, in its stead, so many bushels of oats: and the word _klepper_, or _kleopper_, is explained by Haltaus. _Glos. Germ. Med. Aevi_, 1758: "Equus qui corripit gradum, et gressus duplicat. Nomen habet a celeri correptorum passuum sonitu." H. C. K. ---- Rectory, Hereford. _Anathema, Maran-atha._--Perhaps the following observation on these words may be as instructive to some of the readers of "N. & Q." as it was to me. Maran-atha means "The Lord cometh," and is used apparently by St. Paul as a kind of motto: compare [Greek: ho kurios engus], Phil. iv. 5. The Greek word has become blended with the Hebrew phrase, and the compound used as a formula of execration. (See Conybeare and Howson's _Life and Epistles of St. Paul_, p. 64., note 4.) F. W. J. _Convocation and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts._--