Wilding

sb. and a. Forms: 6 wyldyng, -ynge, -ing(e, wildinge, 7 wilden, 6– wilding. [f. WILD a. + -ING³.] A. sb.

  The meaning in the following quot. has not been ascertained:—

1296.  Acc. Exch. K. R., 5/20 m. 1 (P.R.O.). In .ij. petris de Burre emptis … et quatuor petris de Wyldyng emptis de vxore Andree Skaket.

  1.  A wild apple or apple-tree; a crab-apple or crab-tree.

1525.  Grete Herbal, cclxxxiii. (1529), Q ij. De macianis pomis. Wood crabbes, or wyldynges.

1530.  Palsgr., 289/1. Wyldyng a sower apple, pomme de boys.

1621.  T. Granger, Expos. Eccles. xii. 13. 342. The wilding maketh a fairer shew then many a good apple, but by the taste.

1651.  R. Child, in Hartlib’s Legacy (1655), 16. I never saw … any Apples or Pears thrive in an Hedge, unless Crab, or a Wilden, or some Sweeting or little worth.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Past., III. 107. Ten ruddy Wildings in the Wood I found.

1776.  Bolton, in A. Young, Tour Irel. (1780), II. 202. Do not press wildings till Candlemas.

1786.  Abercrombie, Arrangem., in Gard. Assist., p. xi. Apples valued principally for Cyder. Royal wilding.

1842.  Loudon, Suburban Hort., 535. Wildings or seedling apple stocks.

  2.  gen. A wild plant, flower or fruit.

1577.  B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 73 b. The Filbert will onely be graffed in the Wilding.

1586.  Warner, Alb. Eng., IV. xx. (1612), 95. Wildings, or the Seasons-fruit he did in scrip bestow.

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., III. vii. 17. Oft from the forrest wildings he did bring.

a. 1700.  Sedley, 4th Bk. Virg. Georg., Wks. 1778, I. 33. Among the wildings … they [sc. bees] feed.

1791.  W. Gilpin, Forest Scenery, II. 37. The wildings of the forest.

1813.  Scott, Rokeby, II. ix. Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower, Arose within its baleful bower.

1826.  Campbell, Field Flowers, i. Ye field flowers!… wildings of Nature, I doat upon you.

1840.  Cottager’s Man., 14, in Libr. Usef. Knowl., Husb., III. The principle is to form the hedge of a double row of wildings.

1884.  Browning, Ferishtah, Mihrab Shah, 74. The wilding,… Ruffled outside at pleasure of the blast.

1892.  C. E. Norton, Dante’s Paradise, xxvii. 178. Well blossoms the will in men, but the continual rain converts the true plums into wildings.

  3.  A wild animal. rare.

1897.  Advance (Chicago), 23 Sept., 409/3. Not a specimen of these wildings [sc. deer, turkey, and otter] can be seen now.

  4.  fig. (applied to a person or thing).

1621.  T. Granger, Expos. Eccles. vii. 7. 165. These are Sathans wildings, whom he hath blinded, and so rideth them at his pleasure.

1866.  G. A. Lawrence, Sans Merci, I. xiv. 245. He made professional acquaintance with two or three wildings of gentle birth.

1881.  Stevenson, Virg. Puerisque, 6. The air of the fireside withers out all the fine wildings of the husband’s heart.

1906.  Athenæum, 29 Dec., 822/1. He was swayed always and first of all by the wildings of his imagination and his affections.

1908.  Edith Wharton, Hermit, I. iii. 17. You are not a heathen wilding, but a child of Christ.

  b.  attrib. or adj.

  1.  Applied to a crab-apple or crab-tree: cf. A. 1.

1538.  Elyot, Arbutus, a wyldyng tree.

1552.  Huloet, Wildinge aple, or crabbe, arbutum.

1575.  A. F., Virg. Bucol., III. 9. From a wylding tree, Ten Apples rype I sent.

1632.  Brome, Crt. Beggar, II. i. He lookes so like a wilding crab, good neither for drink nor sauce.

1650.  [W. Howe], Phytol. Brit., 73. Crab-tree, or Wilden-tree.

1665.  Lovell, Herball (ed. 2), 469.

  2.  a. Of a plant (or its flower or fruit): Growing wild: WILD a. 2. Chiefly poet.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 269. Wilding Blooms.

1810.  Scott, Lady of L., IV. i. O wilding rose.

1824.  Loudon, Green-house Comp., I. 227. Grafted on the crab and wilding pear.

1827.  Clare, Sheph. Cal., 84. Wilding fruit that shines upon the trees.

1895.  Crockett, Bog-Myrtle & Peat, V. iv. 345.

  b.  Of an animal: = WILD a. 1. poet. rare.

1856.  Bryant, Gladness of Nature, ii. The wilding bee hums merrily by.

  3.  fig. Developed without culture or training, like a wild plant; natural, native.

1884.  Symonds, Shaks. Predecessors, vii. (1900), 199. It was too late now for critics … to resist that growth of wilding art.