weanling, n. and a.
(ˈwiːnlɪŋ)
Also 6 wayne-, weyn-, wenling, 6–7 wain(e)ling.
[f. wean v. + -ling1.]
A. n. A young child or animal newly weaned.
| 1532–3 Act 24 Hen. VIII c. 9 §1 Diuers persons..haue vsed..to kille yonge beastes, called waynelinges, steres, bullockes, and hesters, of one or two yeres old. 1536 Primer, Compline (Ps. cxxxi. 2) K vij, I am a weanlynge in very dede. 1550 S'hampton Crt. Leet Rec. (1905) 5 Yf any of them have two kyne or wenlings. 1589 A. F. Virg. Bucol. i. 2 The tender weanlings of our sheepe. 1614 Rowlands Fooles Bolt D 2 b, Mens Children went not then to write and read As euery weaneling now a dayes must do. 1655 Moufet & Bennet Health's Improv. viii. 58 Calves are either Sucklings or Wainlings. 1710 D. Hilman Tusser Rediv. Dec. (1744) 145 By this Stanza it seems as though he recommended the Housing of Weanlings. 1883 O. W. Holmes in Atlantic Monthly Sept. 322 Is it a weanling's weakness for the past That..Still keeps our gray old chapel's name of ‘King's’? 1916 K. J. Saunders Adv. Chr. Soul 24 Akbar..shut up a score of weanlings away from all contact with adults. |
| fig. 1594 O. B. Quest. Profit. Concern. L 4 b, The other starre here meant, is called Luciferum, Venus her owne starre, to whom bawdes are wont to complaine, when they were deceiued or robbed of any of their sequestred weanlings. |
B. adj. Recently weaned.
| 1637 Milton Lycidas 46 As killing as the Canker to the Rose, Or Taint-worm to the weanling Herds that graze. a 1722 Lisle Husb. (1757) 214, I doubted some weanling-calves I had wanted water. 1726 Pope Odyss. xix. 469 Hermes,..Whose shrine with weanling lambs he wont to load. 1869 Blackmore Lorna D. lxxv, Into the old farmhouse I tottered, like a weanling child. |
| fig. 1859 Meredith R. Feverel xxxix, That part of his pastoral duty he wisely leaves to weanling laymen. 1871 Swinburne Songs bef. Sunrise, Eve Revol. 57 Breasts that bare Our fathers' generations, whereat lay The weanling peoples and the tribes that were. |