townling

plural townlings

1. An inhabitant of a town.

   There ſhe Prudes it ſo demurely, / And ſo well diſplays her Charms, / That ſome Townling, moſt ſecurely , / She allures into her Arms.

   1738, Henry Carey, Margery; or, A Worſe Plague Than the Dragon, Act I, scene III: Moore-Hall, page 12

plural townlings

1. archaicA small or insignificant town; a townlet

   Let us on this journey take any town from the cathedral city and chef-lieu, or departmental capital, to the townling of a few thousand souls,[…]

   1892, Betham-Edwards, France of Today: A Survey Comparative and Retrospective, Tauchnitz publishers, page 28

   4 more examples

   Some perturbed spirits in that little townling are in distress at the agitation awakened and widely spreading on the Woman question. The editor of the Village News comforts them by the assurance that Mount Vernon is no more prepared for the radical measure of female suffrage than other towns.

   1868 October 29, “Mount Vernon Again”, in The Revolution, volume II, number 17, page 257

   We are annoyed perpetually with lengthened discussions as to the geography of a trumpery townling, or the arrangements of some trivial and indecisive siege.

   1886, D'Arcy W. Thompson, “On History and Progress”, in The Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, Hodges & Smith, page 14

   And close at hand, too, lay St. Aubin; a mere townling; nothing to be called excitement stirring its quiet streets; the daily routine of existence repeating itself with clock-like monotony throughout the year.

   1889, Miss Betham-Edwards, “A Romance of the Cloister”, in Charles W. Wood, editor, The Argosy, volume XLVIII, Richard Bentley & Son, page 116

   As it is not even a townlet, a townling, or half a fraction of a town, there was much rejoicing at a recent ground-breaking ceremony for a new row of Blair toilets when the district commissioner shared with us his vision for town status for Mupandawana by the year 2065.

   2009, Petina Gappah, “The Mupandawana Dancing Champion”, in An Elegy for Easterly: Stories, Faber & Faber, page 91