[f. WIT sb. + -LING1 2.] A petty wit (see WIT sb. 9, 10); one who fancies himself a wit; a pretender to wit (see WIT sb. 5, 7); one who utters light or feeble witticisms.
1693. Dryden, Persius, Sat. I. Prol. 17. Let Gain, that gilded Bait, be hung on high, The hungry Witlings have it in their Eye.
1702. Engl. Theophrastus, 6. There are many impertinent Witlings at Will’s.
1712–4. Pope, Rape of Lock, V. 59. A Beau and Witling perish’d in the throng, One died in metaphor, and one in song.
1807. W. Irving, Salmag., No. 2, ¶ 5. Does any witling want to distress the company with a miserable pun?
1876. Meredith, Beauchamp’s Career, xx. ‘What’s in hand?’… Luckily some witling said, ‘Fours-in-hand!’ and so drily that it passed for humour.
attrib. 1817. J. Scott, Paris Revisit. (ed. 4), 228. The miserable witling captiousness of an opposition.
1845. Miall, in Nonconf., V. 45. A witling poet.
