bantling

bant·ling

(bănt′lĭng)

A young child.

[Origin unknown.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

bantling

(ˈbæntlɪŋ)

archaic derogatory a young child; brat

[C16: perhaps from German Bänkling illegitimate child, from Bank bench + -ling¹]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

bant•ling

(ˈbænt lɪŋ)

n.

a very young child.

[1585–95; < German Bänkling illegitimate child. See bench, -ling¹]

References in classic literature ?

Cast the bantling on the rocks, Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat, Wintered with the hawk and fox.

View in context

And everybody came to Versailles the author quotes the American novelist Henry James who, in his book, The Portrait Of A Lady has a character exclaiming: "Oh, I know all about Versailles, I went there with Mr Bantling, I warned him, when we went out there, that I was thorough: so we spent three days at the local hotel and wandered all over the place."

A palace of secrets; A look behind the scenes at the Palace of Versailles suggests why it one of the world's greatest buildings, writes Richard Edmonds

It played the Fox and Goose hotel in Strangler's Wood and made appearances in Bantling Boy, Secrets and Spies and Not in my Backyard.

GET CLUED UP FOR MIDSOMER; We track down the locations on DCI Barnaby's beat

(20) In a similar way, in a letter to Sir Watkin, Jery mentions offhandedly a young woman with whom he once had an affair: "if the woman should be abandoned enough to swear his [Mansel's] bantling to me, I must beg the favour of you to compound with the parish: I shall pay the penalty without repining" (26).

Sexual politics and social mobility in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker

Six lime kilns at Bantling, near Pontop Pike, Stanley, County Durham, are being revamped in an pounds 85,000 project.

Ruin creates flats for bats; Living quarters for wildlife in building's crevices

The pounds 30,000 from the County Durham Environmental Trust (CDENT) is helping to restore Bantling Lime Kilns, a set of six historic kilns close to Annfield Plain, Stanley, County Durham.