noun One of lesser rank or authority than another; a subordinate.
Word History: Learning the meanings of affixes is a common approach to building vocabulary, but studying a group of words that share an affix can be fascinating in its own right. The suffix
-ling, inherited from Common Germanic, already had several uses in Old English, all of which produced new nouns. It could, for example, be added to a noun to make a second noun that referred to something connected with or similar to the first noun; thus, adding this suffix to the Old English word
yrth, “ploughland,” produced the Old English word
yrthling, “plowman.” The suffix could also be added to an adjective to make a noun that referred to something having the quality denoted by the adjective: from Old English
dēore, “dear, beloved,” was derived
dēorling (Modern English
darling). Adding
-ling to an adverb produced a noun referring to something having the position or condition denoted by the adverb: from Old English
under came
underling. This last use of
-ling is actually taken over from Old Norse. In Old Norse
-ling was used to form diminutives; thus, our word
gosling was a borrowing in Middle English of an Old Norse word,
gǽslingr, “gosling, a little goose.”