younker
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See also: Younker
English
Alternative forms
- yonker (obsolete)
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle Dutch joncker (Dutch jonker, jonkheer), a compound equivalent to jong (“young”) + here (“lord”). Compare junker.
Noun
younker (plural younkers)
- (archaic) A young man; a lad, youngster.
- 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island:
- “Jim,” says he, “I reckon we’re fouled, you and me, and we’ll have to sign articles. I’d have had you but for that there lurch, but I don’t have no luck, not I; and I reckon I’ll have to strike, which comes hard, you see, for a master mariner to a ship’s younker like you, Jim.”
- (obsolete) A young gentleman or knight.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- So foorth they went, and both together giusted;
But that same younker soone was overthrowne
- (obsolete) A novice; a simpleton; a dupe.
- c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :
- Trimmed like a younker prancing to his love!
- junker
References
- “younker”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “younker”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
