[f. WEED sb.1 + -LING.]
1. A small weed.
1820. Clare, Rural Life (ed. 3), 62. And though thou seem’st a weedling wild, Wild and neglected like to me.
1881. R. Buchanan, God & the Man, III. i. 17. Beyond this moss there seemed no other sign of vegetation; not a tree or bush, however bare; no flower, not even the weedlings of the rock.
2. A slight, weakly person.
1890. Emily Crawford, in Universal Rev., 15 July, 410. What is pathetic is the maternal anxiety shown by the weedy lady for her weedier child, to whom life even with wealth can be no boom. Her whole care is that the weedling’s days shall be long [etc.].
1911. Times, 9 Aug., 6/1. The strong, able-bodied ones go off to the Colonies and only the weedlings remain.
