stripling
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of stripling
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at strip 2, -ling 1
Explanation
You can use the old-fashioned noun stripling to talk about a teenager, though few people these days will know what you're talking about. Like many old words in English, the -ling in this one clues you up that it's a smaller version of the real thing. Exactly how the strip part applies is lost in the mists of time, but it may have to do with being thin as a strip from lacking the muscular development of full manhood: the word stripling is a somewhat poetic epithet for a youth.
Vocabulary lists containing stripling
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
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Mythology
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"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 19–24
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Not since 1996, when Roy was a stripling of 24, have all 12 required appropriations bills been separately signed into law.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 10, 2023
As a stripling in his late 70s, he shambled convincingly as the 87-year-old Firs in the Taper's 2006 revival of "The Cherry Orchard."
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2015
A blind stripling drifts in and out of the novel, a reproach, in part, to the finality and moral guarantees of seeing.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 16, 2014
"One tender stripling, the baby of the team, scaled 14 stones," noted the Observer.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 6, 2012
The other sellsword—a stripling, hardly more than a boy, with fuzz on his cheeks and hair the color of dirty straw—scooped up Penny under one arm.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
