[See -LING1.]
1. A delicate person or creature; contemptuously, an effeminate person. Now rare.
1541. Coverdale, trans. Chr. State Matrimonye (1543), 86 b. The more gorgiouse tenderlynges they be, the better shall they please theyr heade the deuell.
1556. Olde, Antichrist, 9. As for the talkes of some fyne fyngred tendrelinges, they are not worth the hearing.
1649. W. Sclater, Comm. Malachy (1650), 123. Those tenderlings unused to hardship, how doth a little affright them?
1802. Beddoes, Hygëia, v. 29. Persons, accustomed to be buffetted by storms … much exceed the inactive fireside tenderling.
2. A person of tender years; a young child.
1587. Holinshed, Chron., III. 628/1. The verie tenderlings who might appeare to be toward and teachable.
1606. Warner, Alb. Eng., XIV. lxxxiii. 348. His Highness then a Tenderling.
18[?]. G. Massey, Babe Christabel, Poems (ed. 1889), 13.
| They [angels] snatched our little tenderling, | |
| So shyly opening into view, | |
| Delighted, as the Children do | |
| The primrose that is first in Spring. |
† 3. pl. The soft tops of a deer’s horns when they are coming through. Obs.
1575. Turberv., Venerie, 129. The Noombles, handes and tenderlings, which are the soft toppes of his hornes when they are in bloude, doe pertayne to the Prime or chiefe personage.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 189/1.
