English
stripling
Stripling comes from Middle English stripling ‘an adolescent, a youth’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *strew- ‘to spread, strew’.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*strew-1‘to spread, strew’root named by Wiktionary · steps between not traced
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500stripling1‘an adolescent, a youth’
- Englishearliest quotation 1611stripling1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English stripling
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1611, The Holy Bible, London: […] Robert Barker: “And the king ſaid, Enquire thou whoſe ſonne the…”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*strew-Wiktionary, English stripling‘to spread, strew’root named by Wiktionary · steps between not traced
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500striplingWiktionary, English stripling‘an adolescent, a youth’
- Englishearliest quotation 1611striplingWiktionary, English stripling. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1611, The Holy Bible, London: […] Robert Barker: “And the king ſaid, Enquire thou whoſe ſonne the…”
Formed from strip ‘long, narrow piece’ + -ling
The story
From Middle English stripling (‘an adolescent, a youth (specifically one who is male); a child’) [and other forms], possibly from strepen (‘to remove the clothes of, undress, strip; to peel off; to skin (an animal); to remove; to take something away from someone; to plunder, rob’) (connoting something that is stripped and thin, and yet to reach its full size) + -ling (suffix forming diminutives). Strepen is derived from Old English *strēpan (Anglian), *strīepan, *strīpan, *strȳpan (West Saxon), from Proto-West Germanic *straupijan, from Proto-Germanic *straupijaną (‘to strip; to pluck; to wipe’), from *streupaną (‘to touch’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *strew-, *sterw-, *ster- (‘a strip; a streak; a beam, ray’)) + *-janą (suffix forming causatives from strong verbs with the sense of ‘to cause to do’). The English word is analysable as strip (‘long, narrow piece’) + -ling.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *strew- ‘to spread, strew’
construction, structure, destroy, destruction, instrument, construct, destructive, instructor, strain, straw, stray, obstruction, instruct, obstruct, perestroika, construe, 12 more
Today it means
noun A young man in the state of adolescence, or just passing from boyhood to manhood; a lad. .
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “stripling”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *strew- / stripling