Rip Van Winkle: Meaning and Definition of
Rip Van Win•kle
Pronunciation: (rip" van wing'kul), [key]
- (in a story by Washington Irving) a ne'er-do-well who sleeps 20 years and upon waking is startled to find how much the world has changed.
- (italics) the story itself, published in The Sketch Book (1819).
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.