Whippersnapper

//ˈwɪpəˌsnæpə// noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A young and cheeky or presumptuous person; often with a connotation of ignorance via inexperience. colloquial

    "These whippersnappers have never had to walk far or carry water."

  2. 2
    someone who is unimportant but cheeky and presumptuous wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
upstarta nobodya nothingboldfaceboybrat

Example

More examples

"Get off my lawn, you young whippersnapper!"

Etymology

Extension of *whip-snapper (“a cracker of whips”), or perhaps from snipper-snapper. Compare also whipperginnie (“term of abuse for a woman”), late 16th c.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.