a1706 J. Evelyn Sylva (1706) iii. 33 Laying bare the whole Roots, and then dividing it into 4 Parts, in form of a Cross, to cut away the interjacent Rootlings.

1787 W. Marshall Rural Econ. Norfolk I. 236 Its rootlings being unable to make the proper progress in a compact or a cold soil.

1861 Macmillan's Mag. June 126 A pea is planted, and there spring from it a rootling and a plantling.

1880 L. B. Hodges Forest Tree Planters' Man. (ed. 2) 41 I have found them in all periods of existence, from mere rootlings to masses of roots sufficient for a tree a hundred years old.

1917 F. Tilden Second Wind ix. 100 Quack has a way..of shoving its hard rootlings right through the potatoes.

2009 R. E. White Understanding Vineyard Soils ii. 43 Bundles of cuttings and rootlings should be hydrated and brought to ambient temperature before the hot-water treatment.

1884 C. Kingsley Martin Lightfoot's Song in Eng. Illustr. Mag. July 627/2 To the rookling sow took he.

1895 P. H. Emerson Birds Beasts & Fishes Norfolk Broadland ii. x. 364 The ‘great old bream’..is a bottom-feeder—a real, rootling, pig-like bottom-feeder.

1904 F. Hayllar Legend St. Frideswide 9 Better among the rootling swine, In forest drear and lone, O Alfgar, than be bride of thine.

2005 Independent on Sunday (Nexis) 30 Jan. (Features) 2 The villages here are all Tibetan—full of grazing cows, nibbling goats, rootling pigs, pecking chickens, and magnificent peasant cottages.