Nestling
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A small, young bird that is still confined to the nest.
- 2 The act of one who nestles.
"It was associated, to them, with vague sweet memories of loving nestlings in mother's arms, of soft warm coddlings before the fire, of slow rocking to and fro in the little, low, flag chair, and gradual droppings off to sleep […]"
- 3 young bird not yet fledged wordnet
- 4 A nest; a receptacle. obsolete
"[…] the Secrecies of the Paſſages; and the ſeats or neaſtling of the humours; […]"
- 5 a young person of either sex wordnet
- 1 present participle and gerund of nestle form-of, gerund, participle, present
"I certainly was not prepared for the cosy nestling valleys that snuggled against the shoulders of the hills; a land where the graystone cottages and farmsteads still prevailed, but where they had taken on something of the softness of their kind in Gloucester and the Cotswolds, and seemed almost like growths of the soil; […]."
Example
More examples"Strasbourg is also an ideal starting point for excursions across the Rhine, to châteaux nestling in the heart of vineyards, villages perching on the mountainside between lakes and forests, and other delights."
Etymology
From Middle English nestling, equivalent to nest + -ling.
From nestle + -ing.
More for "nestling"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.