stripling
/ˈstɹɪplɪŋ/ noun, proper noun
Forms striplings
- noun (dated, also attributive, sometimes humorous) A young man in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. .
- noun (horticulture) A seedling with most of the leaves stripped off.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
sapling shaveling springald bhoy boy boykin boyo callant chav feely-omi guy knave lad little boy man child manling page pillicock son sonny adolescent teenager teen
Etymology
From Middle English stripling (“an adolescent, a youth (specifically one who is male); a child”) [and other forms], possibly from strepen (“to remove the clothes of, undress, strip; to peel off; to skin (an animal); to remove; to take something away from someone; to plunder, rob”) (connoting something that is stripped and thin, and yet to reach its full size) + -ling (suffix forming diminutives). Strepen is derived from Old English *strēpan (Anglian), *strīepan, *strīpan, *strȳpan (West Saxon), from Proto-West Germanic *straupijan, from Proto-Germanic *straupijaną (“to strip; to pluck; to wipe”), from *streupaną (“to touch”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *strew-, *sterw-, *ster- (“a strip; a streak; a beam, ray”)) + *-janą (suffix forming causatives from strong verbs with the sense of ‘to cause to do’). The English word is analysable as strip (“long, narrow piece”) + -ling.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A youth in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. Inquire thou whose son the stripling is. 1 Sam. xvii. 56.
Etymology [Dim. of strip; as if a small strip from the main stock or steam.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “stripling”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details