Word.ws English Dictionary

reckling

/ˈɹɛklɪŋ/

reckling noun: a weak child or animal.

Noun

reckling (plural recklings)

  1. (archaic) A weak child or animal.
    • O ay, what say ye to Sir Valence, him / Whose kinsman left him watcher o'er his wife / And two fair babes, and went to distant lands; / Was one year gone, and on returning found / Not two but three: there lay the reckling, one / But one hour old! What said the happy sire?1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 130
  2. (archaic) A reckless person.

Forms of reckling

pluralrecklings
alternative formwreckling

Origin of reckling

From reck + -ling.

Questions about reckling

What does reckling mean?
Reckling means a weak child or animal.
What part of speech is reckling?
Reckling is a noun.
How do you pronounce reckling?
Reckling is pronounced /ˈɹɛklɪŋ/.
What is the plural of reckling?
The plural of reckling is recklings.

Words near reckling in the dictionary

  1. recklesser
  2. recklessest
  3. recklessly
  4. recklessness
  5. recklessnesses
  6. reckling
  7. recklings
  8. Reckner
  9. Reckners
  10. reckon
  11. reckon for

Source and license

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