Whippersnapper

Contrary to popular belief this is originally a British expression from the late 1600s that gained popularity in America. A whippersnapper, now mainly in America, has come to mean a young, diminutive and generally inexperienced person, usually male, and derives from ‘whip-snappers’, a slightly earlier term, used to describe idle young men who hung around street corners with nothing better to do with their time than crack or snap whips.