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Dec 14, 2012
This week's theme
Words to describe people

This week's words
princox
nincompoop
malingerer
curmudgeon
whippersnapper

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

whippersnapper

PRONUNCIATION:
(HWIP-uhr-snap-uhr, WIP-)

MEANING:
noun: A person regarded as unimportant and presumptuous, especially someone young.

ETYMOLOGY:
Perhaps an alteration of whipsnapper, representing noise and uselessness, or an alteration of snippersnapper, similar in sense. Earliest documented use: 1674.

USAGE:
"Young high-flyers find it hard to manage older workers, and older curmudgeons resent being bossed about by whippersnappers."
Age Shall Not Wither Them; The Economist (London, UK); Apr 7, 2011.

See more usage examples of whippersnapper in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

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