Dictionary

deathling en · NOUN

Etymology

From death + -ling.

Meanings

1. A mortal; one who will die.
   • But for us, let us hearken the counsel of Zeus most high, and obey, Who over the deathling race and the deathless beareth sway. 1892, Agnes Mary Clerke, Familiar Studies in Homer, page 142:
   • God gives and takes away your breath: What more have ye? Breath is your life, and life your soul; Ye have it warm from His kind hands: Then yield it back to the great Whole When He demands. Why, deathling, wilt thou long for Heaven? 1872, Philip James Bailey, Festus: A Poem, page 281:
   • I am a deathling doomed to hell. 1993, Naomi Cornelia Long Madgett, Remembrances of Spring: Collected Early Poems, page 88:
   • Unto whom the Seducer, not our romantic Satan but a clever cartesian Archon, coaxingly thus: Not doing very well, are you, poor deathling, no, and unlikely to do any better, thanks to the schemes of We-Know-Whom, 1972, Wystan Hugh Auden, Epistle to a Godson, and Other Poems, page 32:
   • Vain, helpless deathling! thou that seek'st for fame By hurling filth at an eternal name. 1934, Algernon Sydney Logan, The Mirror of a Mind: The image of air, Saul, The last crusade, page 150:
2. A supernatural being associated with death, especially a child of death.
   • The interest of his realm had need That death should get a numerous breed; Young deathlings, who by practice made Proficient in their father's trade 1860, Jonathan Swift, The Works of Jonathan Swift, page 442:
   • Meanwhile most of the deathling troop had rustled past them and fallen on the Taians. 1980, Poul Anderson, Conan the Rebel, page 167:
   • Deathlings or even wraiths weren't the deadliest weapons. 2009, T. Salenger, The First Rider, page 111:
3. (rare) A dead child.
   • The old mother grieves her deathling. 1994, William Everson, Albert Gelpi, The Blood of the Poet: Selected Poems, page 126:
   • you are all I had in this world beloved deathling alone and cold it is behind my ribs 2004, C. B. Follett, Susan Terris, Runes: A Review Of Poetry Storm, page 97:
   • In my mind's eye I gather the resident who did the tracheotomy, his patient with her collapsible veins, the nurse who said " Good," and, of course, the deathling in the bed. 1986, San José Studies - Volumes 12-13, page 37:

Forms