gyp [L19th] If something gives you gyp, it causes you pain or discomfort. No one knows for certain where gyp comes from, but one theory holds that it is a dialect alteration of gee-up, an instruction to a horse to urge it to move faster. This is certainly plausible, as an earlier meaning of the expression was ‘to scold or punish someone severely’. Gippy as in gippy tummy is from a different source. A gippy tummy was originally painful diarrhoea experienced by British troops in the Second World War in Egypt and is a corruption of the country’s name.