Rip Van Winkle: Meaning and Definition of

Rip Van Win•kle

Pronunciation: (rip" van wing'kul), [key]
  1. (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.
  2. (italics) the story itself, published in The Sketch Book (1819).
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.