The Collaborative International Dictionary
Atheling \Ath"el*ing\ ([a^]th"[e^]l*[i^]ng), n. [AS. [ae][eth]eling noble, fr. [ae][eth]ele noble, akin to G. adel nobility, edel noble. The word [ae][eth]el, E. ethel, is in many AS. proper names, as Ethelwolf, noble wolf; Ethelbald, noble bold; Ethelbert, noble bright.] An Anglo-Saxon prince or nobleman; esp., the heir apparent or a prince of the royal family. [Written also Adeling and [AE]theling.]
Wikipedia
Ætheling (also spelt Aetheling, Atheling or Etheling) was an Old English term (æþeling) used in Anglo-Saxon England to designate princes of the royal dynasty who were eligible for the kingship.
The term is an Old English and Old Saxon compound of aethele, æþele or (a)ethel, meaning "noble family", and -ing, which means "belonging to", It derives from the Germanic word Edeling or Edling and is etymologically related to the modern German words Adel, "nobility", and adelig or adlig, "noble". It was usually rendered in Latin as clito.
Ætheling can be found in the Suffolk toponym of Athelington.
Usage examples of "aetheling".
Aswydd lineage, swore fealty to Tristen in such absolute terms it offended the Guelen clerks who had come with Tristen, for Crissand owned Tristen as his overlord after the Aswydd kind, aetheling, a royal lord, reopening all the old controversy about the status of Amefel as a sovereign kingdom.
Crissand had heard the word aetheling the same as he, when Auld Syes had said it.
Lord Heryn had been their own, their aetheling, their claim to royalty and their man accepted by the Marhanen crown.
Aswydd king of that day continue to call himself aetheling, or royal, as he wished.
Marhanen had never contested the matter, seeing the Aswydd aetheling owned himself a Marhanen vassal when he was outside his own borders.
Amefel, the earls must either swear to a man neither aetheling nor Aswydd, or they must defy the Marhanen king, precipitating the very crisis Cefwyn had avoided when he deposed and exiled Orien Aswydd and appointed a viceroy over the province.
Mauryl had lived long, very long, and all those years might have been in these scrolls, decades of messages flowing between the Warden of Ynefel and the aetheling of Amefel, or things older still.
He saw that Robert counted as best friends such men as Robert of Belesme, a man already famous for his bloodthirsty unscrupulousness, and Edgar the Aetheling, who had once been heir presumptive of England long before the Conquest.
Or would you rather resurrect some pathetic Saxon relic like Edgar the Aetheling for a king?
So while the Aswydds became vassals of the king of Ylesuin, and were called dukes, they were styled aethelings, that is to say, royal, within their own province of Amefel.
Of kings and warrior Danes, a wondrous tale, How aethelings bore them in the brunt of war.
That carefully maintained word aetheling let their lord be royal when he was sitting on what the Amefin not too disguisedly called the throne in Henas’amef… and the Marhanen had never contested the matter, seeing the Aswydd aetheling owned himself a Marhanen vassal when he was outside his own borders.