Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a woman, considered as a sexual object.

1602		Shakespeare All’s Well That Ends Well III iii: Our old ling and our Isbels o’ th’ country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’ th’ court.
a.1661		‘Knave out of Doors’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 29: Indeed Brother Burgess your Ling / Did never stink half so bad.
c.1705		‘The Thing’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 124: Jack Tar full of Glee to the Garden will strole, / In search Sirs of something like L--g.

2. (also old ling) the vagina or the female sexual odour; also attrib.

1656		Mennis & Smith ‘Description of three Beauties’ Musarum Deliciae (1817) 34: Mopsa with her puddle Dock, / Her Compound or Electuary, / Made of old Ling, or Caviary.
c.1663		Etherege [letter] The Queen of Love from sea did spring, Whence the best cunts still smell like ling.
1662		Jack Adams his perpetual almanack 27: He was a very gross feeder for he eat nothing but old Ling, salt pilchards and holland cheese.
1684		Rochester (attrib.) Sodom III iii: Strange how it looks — methinks it smells like ling. It has a beard soe sad, the mouth all raw — / The strangest Creature that I ever saw.
a.1701		N. Ward Revels of the Gods 6: And if he can say an Ill Scent does arise, / From my Toes, or my Armpits, my Ears or my Thighs, / Like Rotten old Cheshire, low Vervane, or Ling.
a.1712		N. Ward ‘Merry Observations upon every Month’ Miscellaneous Writings III 75: Much searching after Old Ling at Moll Fillpot’s, and Mother Cook’s, by the young Limbs of the Law.
1740		‘Roger Pheuquewell’ Description of Merryland (1741) 23: He would imagine by the Smell of the Air, that the Country abounded with Ling.
1762		Bridges Homer Travestie (1764) I 124: He scorn’d thy — as well as mine, / And to us both preferr’d a thing, / That smells of sea-weed, and old ling.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 366: That whoring rogue, that Jove [...] He was a devil at old ling.
1786		Young Coalman’s Courtship 8: ‘She’s a weel far’d lusty hissy, I had a great kindness for her.’ ‘A well-a-wat she’s no lingle-tail’d, she may be a caff-bed to a good fallow.’.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Old Ling. see Old Hat.
1788		Morris et al. Festival of Anacreon Pt II 74: Let us put our commodities now both together; My cod and your ling.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn).
1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 147: A little handful of old ling.
1836		‘Cock Salmon’ Frisky Vocalist 41: He press’d her and kiss’d her, but still she was coy, / And vow’d that no mortal her ling should enjoy.
1837		‘The Maid & The Fishmonger’ Cuckold’s Nest 5: Then the girl shoved her hand ’neath her clothes in a shot, / And rubbed it about on a certain sweet spot; / Then, blushing so sweetly, as you may suppose, / She put it her hand up to the fishmonger’s nose. Tolderol, &c. / The fishmonger smelt it, and cried with delight, ‘I know what you want, by the smell, now, all right, / ’Twas a good thought of yours, recollection to bring; I’ll tell you directly – you wanted some ling’.
1840		Flash Mirror 5: While the men are quarrelling over their gatter, their better halves [...] are always ready and willing to accomodate a swell with anything, from a snadwich to a slice of ling.
1879		limerick in Pearl 2 Aug. 36: Said Lady Macneill, to Sir John, eating ling, / I’m afraid. Sir, that fish a’nt exactly the thing. / Why really, he answer’d, I do not dislike it, / It’s not the thing, but it’s mightily like it.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
2005		Roll Deep ‘Heat Up’ 🎵 Drink your drink / Fuck your ling.

3. (Aus.) a stench.

[1934		Workers’ Wkly (Sydney) 4 May 4/6: There is a spot [...] where the water has been lying in the drive for some time, and just now it is beginning to give forth a nice, mellow, old-world aroma—they say the first whiff is like being hit in the face with a piece of antiquated Ling fish].
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

4. (UK black) oral sex.

2018-20

T. Thorne (ed.) ‘Drill Slang Glossary’ at Forensic Linguistic Databank 🌐 Ling - oral sex.