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shaveling

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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From shave +‎ -ling.

Noun

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shaveling (plural shavelings)

  1. (often derogatory) Someone with all or part of their head shaved, notably a tonsured clergyman; a priest or monk.
    • 1866, Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 48:
      “Bonny times,” he said, “I have lived to see, when a lad of Earl Oslac’s blood is sent out of the land, a beggar and a wolf’s head, for playing a boy’s trick or two, and upsetting a shaveling priest.”
  2. A shaver, stripling, young man physically mature enough to shave.

Translations

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References

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  • Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967