faintling

English

Etymology

From faint +‎ -ling.

Adjective

faintling (comparative more faintling, superlative most faintling)

1. Timorous; feeble-minded.

Noun

faintling (plural faintlings)

1. One who is faint, feeble, or weak.
   • 1823, THE LITERARY CHRONICLE, page 178:

     And for a weak and peevish youth, a faintling, A boy of a girl's temper; one who shrinks Trembling and crouching at a look, a word, A lifted ringer, like a beaten hound.

   • 1901, Socialist songs with music:

     Strong, strong, ever on, Strong in our hope increasing; Heed not the faintling's fall, Nor eyes that on ye look coldly.

   • 1968?, Dub McClish, Preachers and Preaching:

     The modem preacher takes a few tablets of the doctrine of Christ, dissolves them in a gallon or two of sentimental rose water, puts a little of the solution in an atomizer, and sprays the congregation to the tune of “sweet spirited” Christianity and the fragrance of a benevolent life if, by evaporation, the solution becomes too strong he always has an abundance of pink tea handy to revive the faintlings who may have been overcome by too strong a dose.

Anagrams

• inflating