shaveling

Etymology

From shave +‎ -ling.

Noun

shaveling (plural shavelings)

1. (often derogatory) Someone with all or part of their head shaved, notably a tonsured clergyman; a priest or monk.
   • 1866, Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 48:

     “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.”

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

References

• “shaveling” in Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary: Based on Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 7th edition, Springfield, Mass.: G[eorge] & C[harles] Merriam, 1963 (1967 printing), →OCLC.