🐑 A young animal 👶 A chubby child

fatling

1 9.9

A young animal fattened to be eaten

noun
/ˈfæt.lɪŋ/

Archaic

: animal cebado

At the farmer's market, I saw many young fatlings being sold for upcoming festivals.
the lion and the fatling

Examples

The chef prepared a feast with roasted fatling as the main dish.
This golden child watches me limping around the car in this full light, mouthing these words, saying to her, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."

Fiction book (1992)
''The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid... ..and the calf and the young lion and fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

The Company of Wolves (1984)
On that mountain, according to Isaiah, "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together."

Academic text (2007)
I am sated with burnt offerings of Rams and suet of fatlings and blood of bulls, and I have no delight in lambs and he goats.
For their celebration, they chose a young fatling to be the centerpiece of the meal.

Synonyms

feeder

vsfatling

Specialized

4 4.6

A young farm animal being raised to become fatter before sale

is specifically a young animal often fattened for slaughter or a feast

Surface Forms

fatling singular

fatlings plural

Morphology

fatling = fat (transparent) = fat + ling

Formed by 'fat' + diminutive/agentive '-ling', giving the sense 'small/fattened one'; this is a straightforward derivation learners can infer.

Etymology

Fatling is made of fat and the ending -ling, where fat means 'well-fed' or 'plump' and -ling means 'small' or 'young', as in duckling. So a fatling is a young animal grown fat for eating, which explains its use for an animal prepared for a feast.