worldling

English

Etymology

From world +‎ -ling.

Noun

worldling (plural worldlings)

1. A mundane person, preoccupied with worldly affairs rather than spiritual matters.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:

     A foutra for the world and worldlings base!

   • 1600, Nicholas Breton, “A Solemn Farewell to the World”, in Melancholike Humours, in Verses of Diverse Natures:

     These wicked wares, that worldlings buy and sell,
     The moth will eat, or else the canker rust:
     All flesh is grass, and to the grave it must.

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 21, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     […] if the simple look benevolently on money, how much more do your old worldlings regard it! Their affections rush out to meet and welcome money.

   • 1888, The Lady's Book - Volumes 6-7, page 243:

     Disgusted with the world and worldlings, I drove down to an estate of my father's, in Suffolk, determined to “misanthropise” and be romantic ; but all my plans were disconcerted by the “Large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands” of Miss Emily Hathenden, whose estate bordered on my own.

References

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967