# Rip Van Winkle

> English word · Proper noun · IPA /ˌrɪp van ˈwɪŋk(ə)l/

## Definitions
1. A Dutch-American villager who falls asleep for 20 years and wakes up to a changed world, having missed the American Revolution; (by extension) someone or something stuck in the past.

## Etymology
From The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent by Washington Irving (1819).

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/rip-van-winkle