wilding

See also: Wilding

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English wilding, wylding, wyldyng (“grass, straw, or the stems of wild plants”), equivalent to wild +‎ -ing.

Noun

wilding (plural wildings)

1. A wild apple or apple tree.
   • 2023, Ray Mears, chapter 1, in British Woodland, Ebury Spotlight, →ISBN:

     These were ‘wildings’, wild crab apples (Malus sylvestris), a miniature of today's, native to the British Isles.

2. Any plant that grows wild; a wildflower, etc.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Oft from the forrest wildings he did bring, / Whose sides empurpled were with smiling red […]

   • 1697, Virgil, “Pastoral 1”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:

     Ten ruddy wildings in the wood I found.

   • 1824–1829, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: […] Taylor and Hessey, […]:

     The fruit of the tree […] is small, of little juice, and bad quality. I presume it to be a wilding.

Etymology 2

From wild +‎ -ing.

Verb

wilding

1. present participle and gerund of wild
   • 2012, Stephen King, 11/22/63, page 804:

     Those boys are bad enough, and soon they'll start their wilding.

Adjective

wilding (not comparable)

1. (poetic) Not cultivated or tame; wild.
   • a. 1844, William Cullen Bryant, The Gladness of Nature:

     The wilding bee hums merrily by.

   • 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 17:

     And here had fall'n a great part of a tower, / Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff, / And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers: […]