whippersnapper
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of whippersnapper
1665–75; probably blend of earlier whipster and snippersnapper, similar in sense; see whip, snap, -er 1
Explanation
A whippersnapper is someone who is younger than you are but also irritatingly overconfident and impertinent, like your little smart aleck cousin. The word whippersnapper describes a specific kind of bratty, know-it-all kid, and it's only used by an older person who is talking about a younger person. It's a fairly old-fashioned word, having been around since the late-1600s, when it apparently arose out of "whip-snapper," which implied a general sense of lots of noise and very little importance. Around the same time, the word "whipperginnie" was a derogatory term for a woman.
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.
To paraphrase the delegate’s argument, she was going to do her part to encourage people to vote whenever she damn well pleased, and was disinclined to submit to scripted choreography dictated by some whippersnapper.
From Salon • Aug. 24, 2024
A late-career lark for Steve Martin and Martin Short has become a beloved television institution; teamed with relative whippersnapper Selena Gomez, they form a comedy trio like none other.
From Los Angeles Times • May 16, 2024
The whippersnapper was about 5 to 7 years old, some 4 meters long, and weighed about 350 kilograms—as much as a large domestic pig, and about 1/10 the heft of its parent.
From Science Magazine • Dec. 7, 2023
Bankman-Fried was a pretrial whippersnapper in other respects.
From Slate • Aug. 11, 2023
“Hundred and fifty million years? A whippersnapper among ammonites, really. What say we buy it for you?”
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
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.
