Rip van Winkle
1
9.9
- idiom
- /rɪp væn ˈwɪŋkəl/
- Literature
:
Rip van Winkle
- When she returned to her old school after ten years, she realized she was a Rip van Winkle, completely unaware of how much had changed.
Examples
-
VU football has shown signs of waking from the Rip Van Winkle sleep of years past.
Blog text (16) -
Are you Rip Van Winkle?
Blog text (4) -
After missing the news for several years, he felt like a Rip van Winkle when he returned to see all the changes in his hometown.
-
Many people during the pandemic felt like Rip van Winkle, waking up to a world that had changed dramatically while they were isolated.
How Aware
33
3.5
∞
2.7
92
4.9
175
2.9
- Literature
1
9.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
Rip + van + Winkle
This is a proper name and a literary reference to Washington Irving's character, so its sense ('someone oblivious to change') is a cultural/idiomatic usage rather than a compositional meaning derived from the parts. The constituent elements ('Rip', 'van', 'Winkle') do not combine to give that sense in a predictable way, so a B1 learner who only knows the individual words would not be able to infer the MWE's meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Rip van Winkle as a noun comes from a famous story about a man who slept for twenty years and missed many changes in his village. So calling someone a Rip van Winkle means they are 'unaware of changes' happening around them.