Word.ws English Dictionary

gadling

/ˈɡæd.lɪŋ/

gadling noun: a companion in arms; fellow; comrade.

Noun

gadling (plural gadlings)

  1. (obsolete) A companion in arms; fellow; comrade.
    • Gedlyngis, I am a fulle grete wat, […]15th c., “Mactacio Abel [The Killing of Abel]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series...
  2. A roving vagabond; one who roams.
    • I'm delighted to see you. You're as brown, my gadling, as though you had returned from another journey to the East with Jean de Village.1947, Thomas Bertram Costain, The Moneyman, digitized edition, Doubleday, published 2006, page 57
  3. A man of humble condition; a fellow; a low fellow; lowborn. Originally comrade or companion in a good sense, but later used in reproach.
    • “Pest on him!” said De Aquila. “I have more to do than to shiver in the Great Hall for every gadling the King sends. Left he no word?”1906, Rudyard Kipling, Puck of Pook's Hill, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008, page 96
  4. A spike on a gauntlet; a gad.

Forms of gadling

pluralgadlings

Origin of gadling

From Middle English gadelyng (“companion in arms; man, fellow; a person of low birth; rascal, scoundrel; bastard; base, lowborn”), gadeling (“vagabond”), from Old English geaduling, gædeling (“kinsman, fellow, companion in arms, comrade”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaduling, from Proto-Germanic *gadulingaz, *gadilingaz (“relative, kinsman”), equivalent to gad + -ling. Related to Old English ġegada (“comrade, companion”).

Questions about gadling

What does gadling mean?
Gadling means a companion in arms; fellow; comrade.
What part of speech is gadling?
Gadling is a noun.
How do you pronounce gadling?
Gadling is pronounced /ˈɡæd.lɪŋ/.
What is the plural of gadling?
The plural of gadling is gadlings.

Words near gadling in the dictionary

  1. gadjes
  2. gadjet
  3. gadjets
  4. gadjo
  5. gadjos
  6. gadling
  7. gadlings
  8. Gadlys
  9. gadman
  10. gadmen
  11. GADN

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gadling (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: “gadling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gadling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.