[f. TOWN sb. + -LING1.]
1. A small town; a townlet.
1887. M. Betham-Edwards, in Temple Bar Mag., April, 557. So dead-alive this townling of two or three thousand souls.
1892. E. Reeves, Homeward Bound, vi. 165. The rugged, bare mountains that look down on the Gulf of Salerno, and whereon nestle the townlings of Salerno and Amalfi.
2. A town-bred person. Also attrib.
1888. Doughy, Arabia Deserta, I. 128. Turns and terms of the herdsmen poets of the desert, which are dark or unknown in any form to the townling Syrians. Ibid., 214. He watched to see if the townling were discouraged, in viewing only their empty desert before him.
