Word.ws English Dictionary

carling

UK/ˈkɑːlɪŋ/

carling is the alternative form of carline.

Meaning of carline

Noun (1)

carline (plural carlines)

  1. (Scotland) A woman; also, a hag or witch.
    • He taks a ſvvirlie, auld moſs-oak, / For ſome black, grouſome Carlin; […]1785 (date written), Robert Burns, “Halloween”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. […], 2nd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793...

Noun (2)

carline (plural carlines)

  1. A line of automobiles awaiting access to the same building or similar location.

Noun (3)

carline (plural carlines)

  1. Carline thistle (Carlina spp.).

See all 5 meanings of carline

Noun (1)

carling (plural carlings)

  1. A piece of squared timber fitted fore-and-aft between the deck beams of a wooden ship to provide support for the deck planking.

Noun (2)

carling (plural carlings)

  1. A cultivar of field pea or maple pea, dried, soaked, boiled, then fried.
    Synonyms:
    carling pea

Noun (3) capitalized: Carling

Carling (plural Carlings)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of Caroling (“a descendant of Charles Martel; a Carolingian”)
    • Lothar died soon after, in 986; and though his son Louis V. was crowned, he only lived a year, and when he died in 987, the great counts and dukes met in consultation with the chief of the clergy, and agreed that, as the Counts of Paris were the real heads of the State, and nobody cared for the...1882, Charlotte M. Yonge, A Pictorial History of the World's Great Nations, volume 2, page 569
    • The Carlings, on the other hand, had few possessions, but unlimited pretensions to empire, and stood forth as the opponents of the growing spirit of feudalism, the subdivision of property and jurisdiction, and as the upholders of unity, centralisation, and Roman traditions.1884, The Academy, volume 25, page 413

Proper noun capitalized: Carling

Carling (countable and uncountable, plural Carlings)

  1. A surname.
  2. A township in Parry Sound District, Ontario, Canada.
  3. A commune in Moselle department, Grand Est, France.

Synonyms of carling

  • carling pea

Forms of carling

Noun
pluralcarlings
alternative formcarlin
alternative formcarl
alternative formcarle
pluralCarlings
Proper noun
pluralCarlings

Origin of carling

See carline.

Compare French carlingue, which may be from the English.

From care + -ling (synchronically), being connected to the custom of serving these peas to the poor on Care Sunday, called also Carling Sunday after the peas.

Words formed from carling

Phrases with carling

Words that rhyme with carling

Questions about carling

What does carling mean?
Carling means a piece of squared timber fitted fore-and-aft between the deck beams of a wooden ship to provide support for the deck planking.
What is carling the alternative form of?
Carling is the alternative form of carline.
What part of speech is carling?
Carling can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce carling?
Carling is pronounced /ˈkɑːlɪŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of carling?
The plural of carling is carlings.

Words near carling in the dictionary

  1. carline
  2. carline thistle
  3. carline thistles
  4. carlines
  5. Carlinesque
  6. carling
  7. Carling Sunday
  8. Carling Sundays
  9. Carlingford
  10. Carlinghow
  11. Carlingian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: carling (page history and authors); Carling (page history and authors); carline (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.

Last updated:

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