witling

plural witlings

1. A person who feigns wit, pretending or aspiring to be witty.

   I ne'r vvith VVits and VVitlings paſt my days, / To ſpread about the Itch of Verſe and Praiſe, / Nor like a Puppy daggled thro' the Tovvn, / To fetch and carry Sing-ſong up and dovvn; […]

   1735 January 13 (Gregorian calendar; indicated as 1734), [Alexander] Pope, An Epistle from Mr. Pope, to Dr. Arbuthnot, London: […] J[ohn] Wright for Lawton Gilliver […], →OCLC, page 12, lines 218–221

2. derogatoryA person with very little wit.

   "...only a witling would call a man with my conceit a liar."

   1955, Rex Stout, Immune to Murder

   2 more examples

   "But the witlings of the bunch were those two swaggering there in the popular conception of western dress...."

   1942, Maurine Whipple, The Giant Joshua

   I have intruded because this situation is intolerable. You are either a poisonous cockatrice or a witling, and you have brought Mr. Goodwin to a desperate pass.

   2002 May 5, Lee Goldberg et al., “Murder Is Corny”, in Nero Wolfe