Dictionary

learnling en · NOUN

Etymology

From learn + -ling. Compare West Frisian learling (“pupil”), German Lehrling (“apprentice”), Norwegian lærling (“trainee; apprentice”).

Meanings

1. (nonstandard, rare) One who learns; pupil; student; apprentice
   • Perchance in upland pastures there may stray Some learnling of the elder fold, to teach [...] 1913, The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, volume 21:
   • So faulty was his knowledge that to this day impotent learnlings, who have drowned their little souls in printer's ink, find a cheap pleasure in holding up to ridicule the "ignorance," the "lack of system," the "fallacies and errors," of this man who was all heart; smiling contemptuously, too, these impotent learnlings, as if it were more honorable and more praiseworthy to be all head, no matter how diminutive and vapory. 1891, William Nicholas Hailmann, Sketches from the History of Education:

Forms