[f. SUCKLE v. + -ING2.]
1. a. Giving suck. b. Rearing young calves, etc., in suckling-houses.
1799. Underwood, Dis. Childhood (ed. 4), I. 293. Infants at the breast necessarily lying so much on the arm of the suckling mother.
c. 1800. Abdy, in A. Young, Agric. Essex (1813), II. 278. In the dairy farms the calves are generally sold at a week old, to the suckling farmer.
1805. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., II. 979. The calf-suckling farmer.
2. = SUCKING ppl. a. 1, 2.
In earlier quots. possibly attrib. use of SUCKLING sb.1
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2357/4. Lost … a black and white suckling Spaniel Bitch.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, in Aliments, etc., 404. Most of the Diseases of suckling Infants proceed from Milk growing sour and curdling in the Stomach.
1819. Scott, Ivanhoe, xxxii. Though thou art not so tender as a suckling pig.
1835. Wordsw., Sonn. ‘While poring Antiquarians.’ The Wolf, whose suckling Twins [etc.].
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 163. Milk, the natural food of the suckling animal.
b. transf. and fig.
1866. Swinburne, Laus Veneris, lxxix. O breast whereat some suckling sorrow clings.
1882. Coues, Biogen (1884), 43. Some German metaphysicians and their suckling converts.
