young whippersnapper
2
9.9
- noun
- /jʌŋ ˈwɪpərˌsnæpər/
- Offensive
:
jovenzuelo
- These young whippersnappers just have no respect for their elders, huh? Tsk, tsk.
I was quite sort of a left wing, you know, young whippersnapper at that point.
- I was quite sort of a left wing, you know, young whippersnapper at that point.
Examples
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You know, I can dance most of these young whippersnappers off their feet.
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He's in a race for his political life with a smart young whippersnapper named Eric Swalwell.
Blog text (5) -
And I was, for some reason, one of those young whippersnappers who was like on that show.
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Age has nothing to do with ability, and yes, that young whippersnapper needs to learn that.
Blog text (24) -
Now, this young whippersnapper comes along and makes fun of all of them.
Blog text (30) -
Well, it serves the young whippersnapper right.
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In today's video, the young whippersnappers in our audience are going to have a look at how the previous generation lived.
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What the devil do you think you're doing, you young whippersnapper?
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Some old man who no longer has stars in his eyes decides to teach the young whippersnapper a lesson about life, so he gives this child the lowest job in all the industry: reviewing romance novels!
Fiction book (1997) -
You still think you can outsmart us, you young whippersnapper!
Synonyms
70
8.9
A young person who is inexperienced and too confident
6
9.9
A young person who acts too confident and shows little respect
A person, often young, who gossips and says rude things about others
Antonyms
How Impudent
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly inferable from the constituents: 'whippersnapper' already denotes a cheeky young person and 'young' simply reinforces that sense. Although 'whippersnapper' is somewhat idiomatic or dated, the adjective+noun composition adds no novel or non-compositional meaning, so a learner who knows both words will understand the expression.
Etymology
The phrase young whippersnapper may come from a time when a whippersnapper was a young helper who cracked a small whip or made a loud 'snap' to get attention. That noisy, bold image made the word mean a 'young person' who is a bit 'rude', which is why we call someone a young whippersnapper today.