Word.ws English Dictionary

madling

madling noun: a mad creature; one who acts wildly or foolishly.

Noun

madling (plural madlings)

  1. A mad creature; one who acts wildly or foolishly.
    • A madling acts in opposition to common sense. He is an owd madling whose reason has become childish by the lapse of years.1881, Benjamin Preston, Dialect and other poems, with glossary of the local words
    • A madling was speaking to them; a woman. Dani stopped with a mind to retreat.2006, Jacqueline Carey, Godslayer: Volume II of The Sundering

Adjective

madling (comparative more madling, superlative most madling)

  1. (archaic, dialectal) Mad; insane; crazy.
    • To be madling is to have our ideas confused.1881, Benjamin Preston, Dialect and other poems, with glossary of the local words
    • The madling woman snatched the tray from his hands, giving it to the Fjeltroll to inspect.2006, Jacqueline Carey, Godslayer: Volume II of The Sundering

Forms of madling

Noun
pluralmadlings
Adjective
comparativemore madling
superlativemost madling

Origin of madling

From mad + -ling.

Either from attributive use of madling (see above), or for maddling, present participle of maddle (“to be mad”). More at maddle.

Questions about madling

What does madling mean?
Madling means a mad creature; one who acts wildly or foolishly.
What part of speech is madling?
Madling can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of madling?
The plural of madling is madlings.

Words near madling in the dictionary

  1. Madles
  2. Madley
  3. MadLib
  4. madlier
  5. madliest
  6. madling
  7. madlings
  8. Madlock
  9. Madlocks
  10. madly
  11. madman

Source and license

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