RIP VAN WINKLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Rip van Winkle

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/rɪp væn wˈɪŋkəl/ Listen

Rip van Winkle

noun

A person oblivious to social changes.

A person who sleeps a lot.

The title character in a story by Washington Irving about a man who sleeps for 20 years and doesn't recognize the world when he wakens.

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Etymology of 'Rip van Winkle'

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"Rip van winkle" Quotes from Famous Books

... out of the fact that the people have a more healthy look, seem more polite, and that the buildings have a more substantial appearance than those he had formerly looked upon, he has only to imagine, as did Rip Van Winkle, that he has ...

— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... Dutch lad—Rip Van Winkle, as I call him—who was wrecked with me, and our faithful dog Snarley. They set off this morning to bring in a couple of goats to be sacrificed for your entertainment. I saw you coming in last night, and I suspected that you were an English ...

— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. 5. We require clothing in the summer to protect the body from the heat of the sun. 6. Rip Van Winkle could not account for everything's having changed so. 7. This sentence is not too difficult for me to analyze. 8. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, 9. Conscience, her first law broken, wounded lies. 10. To be, or not to be,—that is the question. ...

— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... that the tale of Rip Van Winkle, given in the Sketch-Book, has been discovered by divers writers in magazines to have been founded on a little German tradition, and the matter has been revealed to the world as if it were a foul instance of plagiarism marvellously ...

— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... broad, well-paved streets, Tom persisted in his Rip Van Winkle pose. The waterfront perplexed him. Where he had once anchored his sloop in a dozen feet of water, he found solid land and railroad yards, with wharves ...

— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London

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