subs. (old cant: now colloquial or recognised).—A bastard: cf. BRAT; hence (modern), a child (B. E., GROSE): spec. a young or undersized child; usually in depreciation. [MAHN: ‘with great probability, a corruption of Ger. bänkling, bastard, from bank, bench, i.e., a child begotten on a bench and not in the marriage-bed’].

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  1593.  DRAYTON, Eclog, vii., 102, Lovely Venus … smiling to see her wanton BANTLINGS game.

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  1635.  QUARLES, Emblems, II., viii. (1718), 93. See how the dancing bells turn round … to please my BANTLING.

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  1748.  SMOLLETT, Roderick Random, xlvii. That he may at once deliver himself from the importunities of the mother and the suspense of her BANTLING.

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  1756.  The Connoisseur, No. 123 (1774), IV, 142. Their base-born BANTLINGS.

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  1758.  GOLDSMITH, Essays, X. Who follow the camp, and keep up with the line of march, though loaded with BANTLINGS and other baggage.

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  1809.  IRVING, Knickerbocker History of New-York (1861), 48. Any tender virgin, who was accidentally and unaccountably enriched with a BANTLING.

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  1812.  H. and J. SMITH, Rejected Addresses.

        ’Tis a rickety sort of a BANTLING I’m told,
It will die of old age when it’s seven years old.

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  1822.  SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, xxi. Sell me to a gipsy, to carry pots, pans, and beggar’s BANTLINGS.

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