1520s, coined by Tyndale from weak, adj. + -ling as a loan-translation of Luther's Weichling "effeminate man" (from German weich "soft") in I Cor. vi.9, where the Greek is malakoi, from malakos "soft, soft to the touch," "Like the Lat. mollis, metaph. and in a bad sense: effeminate, of a catamite, a male who submits his body to unnatural lewdness" ["Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament"].