Word.ws English Dictionary

hinderling

hinderling noun: a worthless, degenerate person or animal.

Noun

hinderling (plural hinderlings)

  1. (UK, dialectal) A worthless, degenerate person or animal.
    • How say you, my lusty compeers; shall we permit a hinderlin to sit at board with us, and brand us with the name of cowards?1808, Joseph Strutt, [Walter Scott], “Section VII. Chapter II.”, in [Walter Scott], editor, Queenhoo-Hall, a Romance: And Ancient Times, a Drama. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne &...
    • An animal you deem good for nothing, you may term a hinderling.1813, Joseph Neef, The Method of Instructing Children Rationally in the Arts of Writing and Reading
  2. (dated, in plural) The buttocks; the posterior.

Forms of hinderling

pluralhinderlings
alternative formhinderlin

Origin of hinderling

"Worthless person" sense: from Middle English hinderling (“a laggard, coward”), from Old English hinderling (“a mean wretch, a sneak”), equivalent to hinder + -ling. Compare hilding.

Questions about hinderling

What does hinderling mean?
Hinderling means a worthless, degenerate person or animal.
What part of speech is hinderling?
Hinderling is a noun.
What is the plural of hinderling?
The plural of hinderling is hinderlings.

Words near hinderling in the dictionary

  1. hindering impediments
  2. hinderingly
  3. hinderland
  4. hinderlands
  5. hinderlin
  6. hinderling
  7. hinderlings
  8. hinderlins
  9. Hinderliter
  10. Hinderliters
  11. hinderly

Source and license

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