Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirteen

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

Bantling

The dictionary defines this as a “young child”, a word that it seems is still in usage today to at least a small degree.

The word has steadily fallen out of use over the last century, but it’s quite an affectionate term in many ways, although it hasn’t always been used like that and was sometimes defined more as a brat.