sb. and a. [f. as prec. + -LING.]
1. A young bird just fledged.
1846. Worcester (citing Monthly Rev.).
1847. Longf., Ev., I. i. 119.
| Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests on the rafters, | |
| Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone which the swallow | |
| Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its fledglings. |
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in a Southern County, 239. Though but barely hatched, and chips of shell clinging to their backs, the tiny fledglings swim at once if alarmed.
2. fig.; esp. A raw and inexperienced person, one just starting on his career.
1856. Whyte Melville, Kate Cov., iii. 25. Young fledglings pining madly for their enslavers.
1866. Reader, 10 Feb., 148/2. The few ideas they have were hatched only yesterday; but the beauty and vitality of the fledglings they are so proud of, bear no proportion to their youth.
1877. Owen, Wellesley’s Desp., p. xlvi. On emerging from the College, the fledgling should (as at Woolwich) take rank according to the impartial award of the educational authorities.
3. attrib. (appositive) or as adj.
1830. Tennyson, Claribel, 15.
| Her song the lintwhite swelleth, | |
| The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, | |
| The fledgling [later edd. callow] throstle lispeth, | |
| The slumbrous wave outwelleth. |
1876. E. C. Stedman Vict. Poets, xi. § 3. 390. It gave the book [Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads] a wide reading, followed by a marked influence upon the style of fledgling poets.
1888. Pall Mall G., 3 Nov., 10/1. The little fledgling party which had hardly broken its shell … the Liberal Unionists.
