Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A young child.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A young child; an infant: a term carrying with it a shade of contempt.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Slightly contemptuous or depreciatory. A young or small child; an infant.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
infant oryoung child .
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The Seraph, mightily confused at being called a bantling, giggled inanely, so I replied again.
Explorers of the Dawn Mazo De la Roche 1920
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I, poor fool, exulting in the splendid throes of accomplishment, never dreamed that the real christening of my bantling was the toast the Master of Hell drank as the name "Amalgamated" was slowly traced upon the pad before my eyes; never dreamed that this cherished offspring on whose rearing I had lavished all I possessed of dollars, of ideals, of generous hopes and high expectations -- whose growth I had literally watered with my sweat -- was an imp of darkness.
Frenzied Finance Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated Thomas William Lawson 1891
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Do you, little bantling, kill everything you encounter?
Kenny & the Dragon Tony Diterlizzi 2008
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“Little bantling,” said Grahame with a sigh as he stopped admiring himself in the mirror.
Kenny & the Dragon Tony Diterlizzi 2008
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He looked over at Kenny, Well done, little bantling.
Kenny & the Dragon Tony Diterlizzi 2008
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“Is this hedge-bantling to be fathered on you, Mr. Frank?”
Westward Ho! 2007
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“He breathes the vital air, the Doctor might say, through lungs; he moves erect, & has warm blood; the female brings forth her young alive, and rears the bantling at her breast.”
Thar She Blows! 19th-Century Court Case Harpoons a Whale of a Story 2007
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I was a young author at the time, perhaps proud of my bantling: “I beg your pardon,” I say, “it was written by your humble servant.”
Roundabout Papers 2006
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If the gods, deliberating painfully together, have elaborated any skilful project, the giants are always willing to adopt it as their own, not treating the bantling as a foster child, but praising it and pushing it so that men should regard it as the undoubted offspring of their own brains.
Framley Parsonage 2004
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She was one who would fain be doing something if she only knew how, and the first important attempt she made was to turn her respectable young Tory husband into a second-rate Whig bantling.
Doctor Thorne 2004
yarb commented on the word bantling
At last Mrs. Bede took up her son, kissed his little head, and held him to her bosom. "My chick," she sobbed, "my itty-bitty bantling."
- William Steig, The Toy Brother
September 14, 2008
qms commented on the word bantling
Take care with your self-righteous canting;
A label can be a cruel mantling.
The fatherless sprat's
Not urchin or brat,
Just call the poor bastard a bantling.
February 22, 2015
Gammerstang commented on the word bantling
(noun) - A young or small child; a brat. Often used depreciatively, and formerly as a synonym of bastard. Possibly a corruption of German bänkling, bastard, from bank, bench, i.e. a child begotten on a bench, and not in the marriage bed; 1500s-1800s. --Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
February 11, 2018