petling

plural petlings

1. term of affection or endearment; darling.

   If thou return not, Gammer o'er her pail Will sing in sorrow, 'neath the brinded cow, And Gaffer sigh over his nut-brown ale; […] While evermore the petlings, with sad brow, Will look for thee upon the holly bough […]

   1845, Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides, Book the Fourth, Stanza IX

   1 more example

   The cause of his summary dethronement was, that Ma Betty, meaning it in affection, had called him her “heavenly petling." Jofiie objected, on the ground that, whatever she meant, “ heavenly petling” was in Monkeyish a term of insult.

   1898 February, Mary J.H. Skrine, “How Clytemnestra Saved a Kingdom”, in Temple Bar:A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume 113