changeling
133
9.9
- noun
- /ˈtʃeɪn.dʒlɪŋ/
- Literature
:
niño cambiado
- The old woman feared that her baby had been taken and replaced with a changeling by the fairies.
- a changeling boy
She befriends this girl at school and they decide that they are fae children, they are changelings.
- She befriends this girl at school and they decide that they are fae children, they are changelings.
Examples
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Who knows why, but when they do manage to get their hands on one, they leave a changeling in its place to pass for human.
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Some said he was a changeling, no better than a beast.
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I told you about the changeling child?
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I think he is a she... and I think she is a changeling.
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Father, he would find me in our fields within the forest as if I was his little changeling girl.
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When discovered, the changeling had not been exposed to the elements, but named and, worse, loved.
Fiction book (1993) -
"So she's gone?" the man of God asked the changeling child, for he knew the ways in which these matters worked.
Fiction book (2000) -
That changeling was you.
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"How would you know if he even tried?" the changeling demanded around a mouthful of licorice.
Fiction book (2000) -
"What have you done?" He fell to one knee before the changeling child and grabbed its shoulders tightly through heavy sleeves.
Fiction book (2000)
Synonyms
A child in old stories left by fairies to replace a family's real baby
A child left by fairies instead of a human baby
Compounds
- Literature
A child in old stories left by fairies to replace a family's real baby
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Changeling is made from change and the ending -ling, seen in words like duckling, so it literally means a 'changed little one'. In old stories, people thought fairies secretly 'swapped' a healthy baby for a strange one, which is why changeling now means a child believed to have been exchanged by supernatural beings.