bantling
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Etymology [edit]
Origin uncertain. Perhaps from band(s) (“swaddling clothes”) + -ling, or a modification of German Bänkling (“bastard child”), equivalent to bench + -ling.
Noun [edit]
bantling (plural bantlings)
- (UK dialectal) An infant or young child.
- 1809, Washington Irving (as Dietrich Knickerbocker), A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty [1]
- And I even question whether any tender virgin, who was accidentally and unaccountably enriched with a bantling, would save her character at parlour fire-sides and evening tea-parties, by ascribing the phenomenon to a swan, a shower of gold, or a river god.
- 1841, James Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer [2]
- "You!--half-grown, venison-hunting bantling!..."
- 1809, Washington Irving (as Dietrich Knickerbocker), A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty [1]
