Atheling
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A prince, especially an Anglo-Saxon prince or royal heir.
"[…]to substitute as the Confessor′s heir, the Atheling Edward (son of Edmund Ironside), who was then an exile in Hungary. After the atheling′s return from exile, and his very suspicious death in England in 1057, the Norman duke must surely have realized that his chief opponent in England was likely to be Harold Godwineson[…]."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Malcolm's mother was the sister of the Earl of Northumberland. So the son of Duncan was half-English; and he became more than half-English when, somewhat later, he married Margaret, sister of his friend and guest, "Edgar the Atheling," last claimant of the Saxon throne, who had taken refuge with him while vainly plotting against William the Conqueror."
Etymology
From Middle English atheling, from Old English æþeling, from Proto-West Germanic *aþuling, from Proto-Germanic *aþulingaz. Doublet of edling. By surface analysis, athel + -ing.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.