[f. ANGLE v.1]
1. The action or art of fishing with a rod.
1496. Bk. St. Albans, Fysshynge, 1. Fysshynge, callyd Anglynge wyth a rodde.
1580. Lyly, Euphues, 396. The ende of fishing is catching, not anglyng.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., II. v. 16. When You wager’d on your Angling.
1653. Walton, Angler, 246. Hate contentions, and love quietnesse, and vertue, and angling.
1795. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 479. Amusing to those who are fond of angling.
1823. Byron, Juan, XIII. cvi. Angling too, that solitary vice, Whatever Izaak Walton sings or says.
2. fig. (see ANGLE v. 2.)
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 91. Jet and straw, loadstone and iron, with some others of that hooking kind: where, setting aside their angling and groping one for another, [etc.].
1828. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 113. Such juggleries, and uncertain anglings for distinction.
3. Attrib. and Comb., as in angling books, literature, etc.; † angling-hook, a fish-hook; angling-rod, † angling-wand, a fishing-rod.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, i. (1880), 2. The stock of angling literature.
1883. Athenæum, 3 March, 274/3. Every collector of angling books, which means every scholarly angler, can thus estimate the comparative rarity of his treasures, and hanker after the many prizes of angling bibliomania, which is out of the question that any ordinary mortal can ever obtain.
1549. Coverdale, Erasm. Paraphr. James iii. 8. It hydeth under the bayte of pleasure, the very angling hoke of death.
1552. Huloet, Angling gad, or rodde, Pertica.
1598. Florio, Lungagnola, a fishing rod, a fishing pole, an angling rod.
1814. Wordsw., Excurs., II. 662. A broken angling-rod.
1834. Bancroft, Hist. U.S. (1876), IV. xxxv. 573. They brought angling-rods.
1565. Letter, in Nares, s.v., You will use a long anglyng-wand to catch some knowledg.
