starveling

starve +‎ -ling

starveling (plural starvelings)

1. One who is thin from lack of food.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     If I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no starveling.

   • 1979, V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River:

     As for the starveling rebels of our region, they soon began to reappear in town, more starved and abject, their blackened rags hanging on them […]

starveling (comparative more starveling, superlative most starveling)

1. Starving; suffering from starvation.
2. Meagre; scanty.
   • 1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1965, →OCLC, page 128:

     [A] few meetings in the cape-broom, a starveling allowance of kisses in a very ill-advised publicity.

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:starveling.

• travelings