porklingn.

1541 ‘J. Sawtry’ Def. Mariage Preistes sig. Dii A fewe pharisays and popis porklingis which euer haue ben traytours to their princes.

?1548 J. Bale Image Bothe Churches (new ed.) ii. sig. ni^v The gloryouse glottons, and franke fedde porkelynges of that gredye gulfe..whose God is their bellye.

1602 Contention Liberalitie & Prodigalitie v. i. sig. E3 Come porkeling, come on.

1561 in F. G. Emmison Essex Wills (1982) I. 20 To each of my daughters a porkling next year.

1570 P. Levens Manipulus Vocabulorum sig. Liv/1 These be diminitiues, & may be expounded by this signe little, as gosling, or little goose, porkling or little porke.

1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry iii. f. 148^v Twelue Hogsties, euery stye conteyning fifty Porklinges.

1684 tr. H. C. Agrippa Vanity Arts & Sci. (new ed.) lxxxix. 309 The other..devoured a whole Boar, a hundred Loaves, a Weather, and a Porkling.

1753 W. Gilpin Life of Bernard Gilpin (ed. 2) 262 So long as men may have livings to lie where they will in idleness..fatting themselves like the devil's porklings..God's business shall never be well applied.

1789 J. Clarke Surv. Lakes Cumberland (ed. 2) p. xxxxvi I have found mention made of the porklings which ran wild in the woods growing on the sides of the hills.

1843 Peter Parley's Ann. 267 The little porkling might have squeezed his way through the palings.

1898 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Feb. 231/2 A mottled porkling crashed through a little rug of branches.

1940 Oakland (Calif.) Tribune 14 Mar. 19/5 Patrolman Irving Nelson came out to catch him. It was great fun—for the porkling.

2002 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 23 Feb. 7 Not quite the dried figs and honeyed wine the Romans crammed their pigs with, but Peter's porklings get better vegetables than most humans I know.