Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A word occurring only in the proverb “Better be an old man's darling than a young man's warling,” Camden, Remains.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete One often quarreled with; -- � word coined, perhaps, to rhyme with
darling .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete One often
quarreled with, as in "It is better to be an old man's darling than a young man's warling."
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Therefore some fifteen hundred of his constituents have written him a letter, and have said to him, "Dat he sall, de poo itty-witty darling-warling, have his placey-wacey as longey-wongey as he wants it, and the nasty-wasty one-legged soldiers sha'n't trouble him for situations any more, so they sha'n't."
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Better an auld man's darling than a young man's warling.
The Proverbs of Scotland Alexander Hislop 1836
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No doubt the sweet darling warling precious wecious puppie wuppikins was "provoked" (By the existence of someone it hadn't yet mauled)
Latest Articles 2009
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No doubt the sweet darling warling precious wecious puppie wuppikins was "provoked" (By the existence of someone it hadn't yet mauled)
Latest Articles 2009
Gammerstang commented on the word warling
(noun) - (1) One who is despised or disliked; apparently formed arbitrarily to rhyme with darling. The resemblence to Scottish wirling "a wretch; a dwarfish or puny creature" seems to be accidental.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1928
(2) A word of doubtful origin, occurring in the proverb, "Better to be an old man's darling than a young man's warling." Perhaps coined from war, in imitation of darling, and meaning one often quarreled with.
--Robert Hunter's Encyclopædic Dictionary, 1894
January 15, 2018