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gadling. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
From Middle English gadeling (“companion in arms; man, fellow; a person of low birth; rascal, scoundrel; bastard; base, lowborn”), gadeling (“vagabond”), from Old English geaduling, gædeling (“kinsman, fellow, companion in arms, comrade”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaduling, from Proto-Germanic *gadulingaz, *gadilingaz (“relative, kinsman”), equivalent to gad + -ling. Related to Old English ġegada (“comrade, companion”).
Noun
gadling (plural gadlings)
- (obsolete) A companion in arms, fellow, comrade.
15th c., “Mactacio Abel ”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 10, line 14:
- A roving vagabond; one who roams
1947, Thomas Bertram Costain, The Moneyman, digitized edition, Doubleday, published 2006, page 57:I'm delighted to see you. You're as brown, my gadling, as though you had returned from another journey to the East with Jean de Village.
- A man of humble condition; a fellow; a low fellow; lowborn; originally comrade or companion, in a good sense, but later used in reproach
1906, Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008, page 96:“Pest on him!” said De Aquila. “I have more to do than to shiver in the Great Hall for every gadling the King sends. Left he no word?”
- A spike on a gauntlet; a gad.
References
“gadling”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia