Learnling

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One who learns; pupil; student; apprentice nonstandard, rare

    "So faulty was his knowledge that to this day impotent learnlings, who have drowned their little souls in printer's ink, find a cheap pleasure in holding up to ridicule the "ignorance," the "lack of system," the "fallacies and errors," of this man who was all heart; smiling contemptuously, too, these impotent learnlings, as if it were more honorable and more praiseworthy to be all head, no matter how diminutive and vapory."

Example

More examples

"So faulty was his knowledge that to this day impotent learnlings, who have drowned their little souls in printer's ink, find a cheap pleasure in holding up to ridicule the "ignorance," the "lack of system," the "fallacies and errors," of this man who was all heart; smiling contemptuously, too, these impotent learnlings, as if it were more honorable and more praiseworthy to be all head, no matter how diminutive and vapory."

Etymology

From learn + -ling. Compare West Frisian learling (“pupil”), German Lehrling (“apprentice”), Norwegian lærling (“trainee; apprentice”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.