Rip Van Winkle

English Etymology From The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent by Washington Irving (1819). Pronunciation en /ˌrɪp van ˈwɪŋk(ə)l/ Proper noun Rip Van Winkle en fiction US A Dutch-American villager who falls asleep for 20 years and wakes up to a changed world, having missed the American Revolution; en by extension someone or something stuck in the past. en Paul Krugman Biden Versus the Rip Van Winkle Caucus The New York Times 2021-09-27 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/opinion/biden-centrist-democrats.html 0362-4331 That is, it makes a lot of sense to see Biden’s problems getting his plans across the finish line as being caused by the Rip Van Winkle caucus, Democrats who checked out intellectually a couple of decades ago and haven’t caught up with America as it now is. https://web.archive.org/web/20250722155257/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/opinion/biden-centrist-democrats.html/ 22 July 2025 en Rhonda Garelick Middle Age Doesn’t Happen ‘Just Like That’ The New York Times 2022-01-05 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/style/middle-age-satc-just-like-that.html 0362-4331 The characters do seem Rip Van Winkle-like, as they stumble upon and blink in amazement at very unsurprising things. “Wow! Instagram? Podcasts?” marvels Miranda at some of Carrie’s latest endeavors, as if these were edgy new enterprises. https://web.archive.org/web/20250701085821/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/style/middle-age-satc-just-like-that.html 1 July 2025 en https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/13/tory-papers-boris-johnson-liar Finally the Tory papers have caught on that Johnson is a liar – what kept them? Polly Toynbee 2022-01-13 The Guardian A Tory Rip Van Winkle waking from decades of sleep to look round that cabinet table now would be aghast. https://web.archive.org/web/20261018122739/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/13/tory-papers-boris-johnson-liar 18 October 2026 Derived terms en Rip Van Winkledom en Rip Van Winkleish en Rip Van Winklesque Further reading en Fictional characters