Word.ws English Dictionary

arseling

arseling adverb: backwards.

Adverb

arseling (not comparable)

  1. (East-Anglia, Scotland, UK, dialectal, especially) Backwards.

Noun

arseling (plural arselings)

  1. (UK, derogatory, rare, slang) A petty and obnoxious person.
    • Defiant arselings is what you all are. You think you know best, gallivanting off with pirates?2023, Tricia Levenseller, Vengeance of the Pirate Queen
    • "Ah, the arselings Leif Kolskeggson and Sterkur death-in-the-eye," Svik said.2024, John Gwynne, The Fury of the Gods

Forms of arseling

Adverb
alternative formarselings
alternative formarselong
Noun
pluralarselings
alternative USassling

Origin of arseling

From Middle English *arsling, from Old English earsling (“backwards, on the back”). Cognate with Dutch aarzeling, aarzelings, German ärschling, ärschlings. By surface analysis, arse + -ling.

From arse + -ling.

Questions about arseling

What does arseling mean?
Arseling means backwards.
What part of speech is arseling?
Arseling can be an adverb or a noun.

Words near arseling in the dictionary

  1. arselicked
  2. arselicker
  3. arselickers
  4. arselicking
  5. arselicks
  6. arseling
  7. arselings
  8. arseload
  9. arseloads
  10. arselong
  11. arsemunch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: arseling (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “arseling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arseling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.