priestlingn.

1629 J. Maxwell tr. Herodian Hist. 242 This brave young priestling as he sacrificed, and caperd about the Altars,..was curiously eyed of all.

1649 J. Milton Observations in Articles of Peace with Irish Rebels 57 The rebellion which was even then design'd in the close purpose of these unhallow'd Priestlings.

1718 N. Amhurst Protestant Popery iv. 50 Each saucy Priestling to the Battel flies, And in the Sacred Lists with Bangor vies.

1763 R. Graves Coll. Poems V. 63 The priestling, proud of doctrine not his own, Usurps a scarf, and longs to preach in town.

1816 R. Southey in Q. Rev. 14 352 For the purpose of conciliating the good will of the prelates and priestlings.

1866 J. H. Newman Dream of Gerontius iv. 29 Such fudge, As priestlings prate, Is his guerdon.

1878 Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 15 July (Advertising section) 3 You need no puny priestling, To guide you to his feet.

1956 G. M. Gathorne-Hardy Royal Impostor ix. 107 A young priestling from a distant Norwegian dependency turns up in Sweden, with an utterly unsubstantiated and inherently improbable story of his birth.

1997 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 13 Apr. 28/2 Felix (echoed later in the century by his brother) notes..the splendor of Notre Dame (its choir full of pimps and madams, its bays sheltering foundlings) and endless, irritating processions of priestlings and monks.

1720 T. Gordon & J. Trenchard Independent Whig No. 19 It is no Wonder, that weak People now a Days should believe in Priests and not in Christ; should be Priestlings and not Christians.

1907 19th Cent. Mar. 464 The priestlings of the Centre exclaimed that the finger of God had done it.