I looked up the word “chippy” on dictionary.com and did not see an adjective definition of the word. The noun definitions have to do with birds and prostitutes, so no dice there.
The context seems to suggest “physical” or maybe “contentious.”
It means irritable, temperamental.
“Editorial Note: Oxford English Dictionary cites this meaning as early as 1885 as a colloquial form of ‘given to chipping, ready to chip.’ In recent decades in North America it has become most commonly, though not exclusively, used in connection to sports play, especially hockey, where it is perhaps reinforced by the idea of rough play causing the ice to chip.”
It can also be used in the sense that one might have a "chip on one’s shoulder"and so act in an aggressive way. It might best be thought of as “Are you looking at me funny, pal?” leading to a brutal tackle or an obvious foul in sport, or a punch to the face in a bar.
It’s also a name for that well loved and great British iinstitution…The Fish and Chip Shop.
“Cod, chips and mushy peas, please Doris” “heavy on the s&v”
I think it was Keith Olberman who once said that chippy is a Canadian euphemism for street violence.
sex and violence? 
Salt and vinegar.
It’s also UK slang for carpenter.
My first reaction was the carpenter slang too.
It was also the name of the cat on the HMS Endurance. The cat was shot along with the dogs when they abandoned ship.
In California a chippy is a California Hiway Patrol Officer.
As in:
“Damn Chippy wrote me for 75 in a 65”
In another take:the Random House site definition, here is a French derivation:
“The New Orleans connection might be the clue to this mystery. Both the Dictionary of American Regional English, and the Cassell Dictionary of Slang suggest that chippy comes from the French word chipie, ‘vixen’ or ‘shrewish woman’. Brace yourselves for more feathers, because the Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Française says that chipie, which arrived in Paris from Normandy around 1820, is probably a combination of chipe,–a form of the verb chiper, ‘to make off with, steal’–and the noun pie, ‘magpie’. (The two words together form the common expression, “thieving magpie.”) It wouldn’t seem surprising, then, that chippy arrived in French-speaking New Orleans as chipie and, after a few furtive visits to Storyville, turned pro.”
So, could be the “chip on one’s shoulder” Anglo definition in this case, or, the French aspect of shrewish behavior.
In the UK a ‘fish and chipper’ is a cycle race that takes place during a weekday evening.
Riders use them as part of their training schedule, usually fairly short, around 40 miles, its seen as a way of getting points to hold on to your category licence, but when the race is finished, you generally end up in the fish and chip shop for your evening meal as by the time you get home its too late for a havy meal, and of course you would not have a large meal before a race.
S & V or “salt and vinegar” is slang for “carpenter”? I’ve never heard of that one. Oh well, learning soemthing new every day.
In one of the available Lenny Bruce show tapes, Lenny asks an audience member if he’d ever committed adultery. Elaborating, he asked, “You ever chippy on your wife?”
S&V = salt and vinegar.
Chippy/chippie = carpenter. Or fish and chip shop. Or (adj) a bit narky.