stripling

From Middle English stripling (“an adolescent, a youth (specifically one who is male); a child”) [and other forms], possibly from strepen (“to remove the clothes of, undress, strip; to peel off; to skin (an animal); to remove; to take something away from someone; to plunder, rob”) (connoting something that is stripped and thin, and yet to reach its full size) + -ling (suffix forming diminutives). Strepen is derived from Old English strēpan (Anglian), strīepan, strīpan, strȳpan (West Saxon), from Proto-West Germanic straupijan, from Proto-Germanic straupijaną (“to strip; to pluck; to wipe”), from streupaną (“to touch”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European strew-, sterw-, ster- (“a strip; a streak; a beam, ray”)) + *-janą (suffix forming causatives from strong verbs with the sense of ‘to cause to do’). The English word is analysable as strip (“long, narrow piece”) + -ling.