2129: -ling Oct 13, 2020

The suffix '-ling' is used as a suffix to make nouns, often but not always diminutive. These range from things like occupations (e.g. 'underling' and 'hireling'), terms for relation like 'sibling', 'youngling' and 'darling' (sort of), and certainly the diminutive uses like 'duckling', 'gosling', or ‘sapling' and even some rarer ones like 'nestling' (bird chicks, or also baby rabbits). 'Fingerling' is the name for baby bony fish too, following this pattern, but the first half refers to the fact that young salmon among other types of these fish have stripes. There are plenty more, and while this suffix is somewhat productive, it is used generally for older words these days.