Meaning & use
whipper snapper
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountableold-fashionedhumorousdisapproving
A young person who seems too confident or cheeky for their age or experience, especially one who acts as if they know more than their elders.
Grammar: Often used as a teasing label: that young whippersnapper.
Patterns
- a young whippersnapper
- some whippersnapper
Some young whippersnapper tried to tell me how to run my own shop.
Grandpa grinned and called the new intern a whippersnapper.
Back in my day, a whippersnapper like you would have been sent to bed.
Word forms
| plural | whippersnappers |
|---|
Common combinations
- young whippersnapper
- That young whippersnapper has already been promoted twice.
- cheeky whippersnapper
- The cheeky whippersnapper corrected my grammar.
- call someone a whippersnapper
- He called his nephew a whippersnapper with a smile.
- some whippersnapper
- Some whippersnapper just parked in my space.
Synonyms and how they differ
- upstart
- Upstart stresses someone new who rises too fast and is more critical, while whippersnapper is lighter and often affectionate.
- brat
- Brat refers to a badly behaved child, whereas whippersnapper is about cheek and overconfidence and can be used for young adults.
- stripling
- Stripling simply means a youth and is quite literary, without the sense of cheek that whippersnapper carries.
Opposites
Word family
- whipper-snapper noun
- hyphenated spelling variant of the same word
- snapper-up noun
- not related; avoid confusing the second element with this word
Commonly confused: whipper snapper or whipping boy?
whipper snapper vs whipping boy
A whipping boy is someone who is blamed for the faults of others, not a cheeky young person.
Practice
An older man says, 'That young whippersnapper thinks he knows everything.' What does he mean?
Choose one answer.
A whippersnapper is a young person seen as cheeky or too sure of themselves. The other options do not match the teasing tone.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “whipper snapper”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.