The other day I discovered that a young puffin is known as a puffling, which I really like the sound of.
There are a few other words that include the -ling suffix that are commonly used: sibling, duckling, underling, earthling, seedling, yearling (an animal that is between one and two years old) – can you think of others?
There are plenty more on Wiktionary, though few are in common use, as far as I know.
There’s a few -ling words I didn’t see on the list from the Wiktionary link:
darkling (adv. in the dark)
dumpling
easterling (resident of an eastern land)
halfling (one not fully grown)
sanderling (wading bird, Crocethia alba)
atheling (member of a noble family)
starveling (starving or starved person)
shaveling (contemptuous term for a friar, literally “shaven person”)
stripling (a youth)
Shovelling (a little shovel)
Just joking 😉
changeling (a fairy child given in exchange for a human one)
weakling (a weak child, runt)
gosling (young goose)
codling (young cod)
spiderling (young spider – possibly a modern coinage)
German also uses the “-ling” suffix:
Zwilling (twin)
Pfifferling (chanterelle – ‘pepper-ling’)
Egerling, Angerling (field mushroom, horse mushroom etc,)
My fiancé’s favourite animal! 🙂
Supposedly, a flapling is a newly hatched pterosaur. It may not be that common, though (if handy).