1597: If I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no starveling. — Shakespeare, Henry IV Part I, II.1
1843: Our poor little starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who will see only evil and not good in this world. Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, ch. 1, Midas
1977: Our poor little starveling Tom, who cries all day for victuals, who will see only evil and not good in this world Is it poor little starveling Jack that must go, or poor little starveling Will — What an inquiry of ways and means. — Thomas Carlyle Past and Present, →ISBN, p. 10
1999: "No loinskin-wetting foreign coward is ever going to tear me apart," said Mpushu happily. "And especially not a starveling like you." — Credo Vusa'mazulu Mutwa, Vusamazulu C Mutwa in Indaba, My Children: African Folktales →ISBN, p. 85