pingler

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

pingler (plural pinglers)

1. (rare) One who plays with his food, but does not eat.
   • 1607, Edward Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts, page 412:

     It hath large and wide cheeks, which they always fill, both carrying in, and carrying out, they eat with both, whereupon a devouring fellow,such a one as Stafimus a servant to Plautus was, is called Cricetus, a Hamster, because he filleth his mouth well, and is no pingler at his meat.

   • 1636, Stephen Bradwell, Physick for the sicknesse, commonly called the plague, page 21:

     For the Drunkennesse lives of many are so monstrous, that Heliogabalus was but a pingler to them.

   • 1888, John Day, Nathan Field, Herbert Percy Horne, Nero & Other Plays, page 131:

     ...if I cannot drink it down to my foot, ere I leave, and then set the tap in the midst of the house, and then turn a good turn on the toe on it, let me be counted nobody, a pingler, — nay, let me be bound to drink nothing but small-beer seven years after — and I had as lief be hanged.

   • 1964, Time & Tide, volume 45:

     A person who only toys with his food, or a child who will not eat, is a pingler.

   • 1986, Audrey Whiting, Gal Audrey, page 162:

     '"Gal Audrey, yer wot l call a pingler. You don't never want nothin' to eat," Mum snapped.

Anagrams

• Pringle, lerping, plinger, pringle