nursling

noun

"nursling" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“nursling” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A young child or animal being nursed.

Corpus desk

Index EN-nursling · nursling · English

nursling · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "N" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for nursling
PropertyValue
Headwordnursling
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “nursling” in English

nurslingsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

nursling is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A young child or animal being nursed.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for nursling, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From nurse + -ling. The correct English form is nursling, spelled N-U-R-S-L-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    A young child or animal being nursed.

Etymology

From nurse + -ling.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "nursling"?
"nursling" is spelled N-U-R-S-L-I-N-G.
What does "nursling" mean?
As a noun, "nursling" means: A young child or animal being nursed.
What is the origin of the word "nursling"?
From nurse + -ling. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list