1. In Old English, -ling added to nouns forms nouns with the general sense ‘a person or thing belonging to or concerned with (what is denoted by the primary noun), as hýrling hireling, ierðling ploughman ( < ierð ploughing), rǽpling prisoner ( < ráp rope). The derivatives from adjectives have the sense ‘a person or thing that has the quality denoted by the adjective’, e.g. déorling darling, efenling an equal, feorðling quarter, farthing, geongling youngling, gesibling, sibling kinsman; similarly from an adverb, underling subordinate. One or two names of birds have this suffix in Old English, as swertling ? some black bird (? < sweart black), stærling starling; here it may possibly have a diminutive force (see 2 below).In Middle English and modern English the suffix continued to be freely employed with the same function as in Old English; examples are atterling, deathling, fatling, firstling, grayling, nestling, nursling, sapling, suckling. The personal designations in -ling are now always used in a contemptuous or unfavourable sense (though this implication was not fully established before the 17th cent.), as courtling, earthling, groundling, †popeling (= papist), vainling, worldling. On the analogy of words like nursling, where the grammatical character of the initial element is ambiguous, a few nouns in -ling have been formed on verb-stems (taken in passive sense), being personal designations of contemptuous import, such as shaveling, starveling; of similar origin is stripling, though it has lost its primary derisive sense.The suffix is no longer productive in the uses above explained.

Forming adverbs, most of which survive only dialect. The Germanic root *liŋg-, laŋg-, luŋg-, to extend, reach, appears in its three ablaut-forms as the terminal element in certain Old English adverbs expressive of direction or extent, as in bæcling backlings adv.; andlang (see along adj.¹, endlong prep., adv., and adj.); nihtlanges for a night; grundlunga (also grundlinga) to the ground. In certain instances the suffixes -linga, -lunga, were already in Old English substituted for -inga, -unga, adverbial terminations originating in some case (? ablative) of nouns in -ing, -ung (see -ing suffix¹); so in néadlunga, níedlinga, whence, with adverbial (genitival) es, the Middle English nedlingis needlings adv., of necessity. The original Old English use (in which the suffix is added to nouns to form adverbs of direction) is continued in the later formations grufelyng (grovelling adv.), headling(s, sideling(s; more numerous, however, are the words in which the suffix forms adverbs of condition or situation from adjectives, as blindling(s, darkling(s, firstlings, flatling(s, hidlings, mostlings.