baseling
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English baseling (attested only in the sense of debased coinage), equivalent to base + -ling.
Noun edit
baseling (plural baselings)
- (rare) One who is base or inferior
- 1873, Homer, The First Six Books of the Iliad of Homer, page 31:
- O weaklings, baselings we, — Achaian women, and not men!
- 1882, Frederick Randolph Abbe, The Temple Rebuilt, page 179:
- Why lift aloft the baseling? give the sword
To unanointed hands? garland the brow
Which virtue never crowned? […]
- 2015, Joseph S. Exell, Biblical Illustrator, volume 5:
- Or again, the world's simpletons, the world's nonentities, the world's weaklings and baselings (i.e., elements deemed such by the world) the chosen things, the very elements of God's selection for the kingdom, […]