wormling

wormling

English

Etymology

From worm +‎ -ling. Compare Icelandic yrmlingur (“wormling”).

Noun

wormling (plural wormlings)

1. A little worm.
   • 1608, [Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas], “(please specify the page)”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, OCLC 1181680849:

     O dusty wormling! dar'st thou strive and stand / With Heav'ns high Monarch?

2. (by extension) Any weak, mean, or lowly creature.
   • 1797, Alexander Geddes, A New Translation of the Book of Psalms (1807):

     But I am a wormling, and not a man; the scorn of men, and derision of the people.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for wormling in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)