shaveling

noun — 2 senses

shaveling

noun

Etymology From shave + -ling.

1

Derogatory, Often Someone with all or part of their head shaved, notably a tonsured clergyman; a priest or monk.

  • “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.”1866, Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 48:
2

A shaver, stripling, young man physically mature enough to shave.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.