sb. and a. [f. STARVE v. + -LING.]
A. sb. A starved person or animal; one who habitually starves or is stinted of food; one who is emaciated for lack of nutriment.
1546. Supplic. Poore Commons (1871), 64. If none should be alowed meat in your Highnes house, but suche as were clothed in veluet…. What steruelynges would your seruantes be aboue all other?
1557. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 226. The fewe [swine] that she kepe, much the better shal bee: of all thing, one good is worth steruelinges three.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. i. 76. If I hang, Ile make a fat payre of Gallowes. For, if I hang, old sir Iohn hangs with mee, and thou know’st hee’s no Starueling.
1674. Marvell, Reh. Transp., II. 49. But the more hungrey starvelings generally look’d upon it as an immediate Call to a Benefice.
1830. M. Donovan, Dom. Econ., II. 119. Some [hogs] will fatten where others would remain starvelings.
1854. Mrs. Gaskell, North & S., xxii. And now they’ve frightened these poor Irish starvelings so with their threats.
1871. B. Taylor, Faust (1875), II. I. iii. 47. What will the lean fool do? Has he, so dry a starveling, humour?
b. transf. of a plant, etc.
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, III. xvi. 453. You may graft … two or three scutcheons, prouided that they be all of one side: for they would not be equally set together in height, because that so they might all become staruelings.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, xxi. § 3 (1679), 92. Some of the outward skirts [of the wood] were nothing save shrubs and miserable stervlings.
1709. Shaftesb., Moralists, II. iv. 118. What think you of the Brain in this Partition? Is it not like to prove a Starveling?
c. fig.
1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., 610/2. Therfore as oft as we play the lingerers, & cold staruelinges … let vs take this Exhortation.
a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., V. 157. As if rather some blind fortune had bestowed her blessings carelessly till she had no more left, and thereby made so many starvlings.
1861. Holland, Less. Life, xxiii. 331. An irreligious man—no matter what his genius may be—is always a starveling.
B. adj.
1. That lacks a sufficiency of food; hence, lean and weak for want of nutriment; ill-fed, hungry.
1597. Bp. Hall, Sat., II. i. So lauish ope-tyde causeth fasting-lents, And staruling Famine comes of large expence.
1617. Moryson, Itin., I. 239. Starveling flies sucke much more, then those that are fully gorged.
a. 1660. Contemp. Hist. Irel. (Ir. Archæol. Soc.), I. 152. The poore starulinge souldiers, after theire longe and tedious marche, fell eagerly to eate and drinke.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., I. 175. If any Trees … have all their Leaves lesser, and more starveling than they should be.
1787. Beckford, Lett. Italy, etc. II. 263. The stems of starveling pines.
1850. S. Dobell, Roman, vi. The very meanest starveling hound.
1883. Symonds, Ital. Byways, iii. 61. The palace has become a granary for country produce in a starveling land.
fig. 1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., Wks. 1851, III. 325. Sending heards of souls starvling to Hell, while they feast and riot upon the labours of hireling Curats.
1675. J. Owen, Inwelling Sin, xv. (1732), 199. They … perform Duties with as much constancy as ever they did, but yet have poor lean starvling Souls.
2. Poverty-stricken. Of circumstances, etc.: Characterized by or exhibiting poverty.
1638. Featly, Transubst., 9. To another a Cardinals hat was given, but with so thinne lining … that he was commonly called the starveling Cardinal.
1728. Pope, Dunciad, II. 36. No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin,… But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise, Twelve starveling bards of these degen’rate days.
1822. W. Irving, Braceb. Hall, xxii. 188. [He] then cast a glance upon his own threadbare and starveling condition. Ibid. (1850), Goldsm., vi. 89. The booksellers, who gave him occasional, though starveling, employment.
1874. F. C. Burnand, My Time, xxxi. 309. There was a starveling air about the place.
fig. 1841–9. J. C. Hare, Par. Serm., II. 190. Our hearts are too poor and starveling, and our souls too narrow and crampt, to find food and room for all these thoughts and feelings.
3. Perishing (with cold and exposure). rare.
1697. Dampier, Voy., I. 498. In this wet starveling plight we spent the tedious night.
1805. Wordsw., Waggoner, iv. 260. And babes in wet and starveling plight; Which once, be weather as it might, Had still a nest within a nest.
4. fig. Poor in quality or quantity, lean, thin, meager, scanty.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 117. It is a starveling conceit of Innovating brain-pans.
a. 1665. J. Goodwin, Being filled with the Spirit (1670), 79. The expressions of such a man, whether by words or actions, will be lean and starveling.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 484. We talk … of a meagre and starveling style, of crudities in expressions.
1816. Coleridge, Statesman’s Man., 36. A hunger-bitten and idea-less philosophy naturally produces a starveling and comfortless religion.
1843. Gladstone, in For. & Col. Q. Rev., II. 565. They are so much at variance with the fixed formularies of the Church, from the narrow and starveling form of their doctrine, that they [etc.].
1859. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., in Jrnl. Geog. Soc., XXIX. 195. Beyond Uyogo is Usange, a starveling settlement of Wanyamwezi.
1889. C. Edwardes, Sardinia, 297. A starveling little group of pines.
5. Comb.: † starveling-brained adj.
1638. Ford, Ladies Trial, I. ii. Leave such poore out-side helpes to puling lovers, Such as Fulgoso your weake rivall is, That starveling braind-companion.
