stripling

plural striplings

1. alsoattributivedatedhumoroussometimesA young man in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. .First known use 14th c.

   Count Edmund—but he was indeed a stripling, A very lad

   1781, Horace Walpole, The Mysterious Mother, Act 1 Scene 2

   5 more examples

   And the king ſaid, Enquire thou whoſe ſonne the ſtripling is.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 17:56, column 1

   And now, I suppose, my Striplings are formally clad, and togated, newly arrived at the Vniversities

   1634, Miles Sandys, Prudence

   Figure to yourſelf, Madam, a fair ſtripling, between eighteen and nineteen, with his head reclin'd on one of the ſides of the chair, his hair in diſorder'd curls, irregularly ſhading a face, on which all the roſeate bloom of youth, and all the manly graces conſpired to fix my eyes and heart.

   Fanny Hill

   1749, [John Cleland], “[Letter the First]”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume I, London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, page 92

   This is the sort of witchery, not easily defined—but, by its votaries, pretty sensibly felt, in hunting the fox. The light-hearted, high-spirited stripling, when cigaring it careless to cover, with a kind of a knowing demi-devil-may-care twist of his beaver, receives in his transit a benison from every real friend of the chase he may chance to pass; and the airy, eager zeal of the youthful aspirant to rolls, tumbles, and the brush, will flush his memory with the frolic gayety of other days, and animate his mind with reflections most welcome to his heart.

   1837, Venator [pseudonym; John Cooper], “Prefatory Remarks”, in The Warwickshire Hunt, from 1795 to 1836; […], London: Henry Harris, […]; Warwick, Warwickshire: J. Cooper, […], →OCLC, page vi

   A berth was reserved for me by my friends in the same cabin as that of Sjt. Tryambakrai Mazmudar, the Junagadh vakil. They also commended me to him. He was an experienced man of mature age and knew the world. I was yet a stripling of eighteen without any experience of the world. Sjt. Mazmudar told my friends not to worry about me.

   1927, M[ohandas] K[aramchand] Gandhi, “Outcaste”, in Mahadev Desai, transl., The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Translated from the Original in Gujarati, volume I, Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Navajivan Press, →OCLC, part I, page 104

   Synonyms: sapling, shaveling, springald, bhoy, boy, boykin, boyo, callant

2. agricultureA seedling with most of the leaves stripped off.

   For there upon the narrow new-made road, between the stripling pines, was a mediæval friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs.

   1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, “[Our Lady of the Snows.] Father Apollinaris.”, in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC, page 91

plural Striplings

1. A surname.