love child
11
6.5
- noun
- /lʌv tʃaɪld/
:
hijo ilegítimo
- When she learned she had a love child, her world turned upside down.
- Jackson's love child
- Jesse Jackson's love child
- Superman's love child
Joey is the love child of the Baha Men and James Blunt.
- Joey is the love child of the Baha Men and James Blunt.
Examples
-
I bet Gillian's a love child!" She nods at her own thoughts.
Fiction book (1990) -
And this is our adopted love child!
Fiction book (2001) -
Brace yourself, you're about to meet our love child.
-
The Gentle Stranger Finds a New Home with the Mother and Her Love-Child
Fiction book (1996) -
You are a love child in every sense of the word—conceived in love and love alone.
Fiction book (1999) -
Many people were surprised to discover that Mark had a love child with his long-time girlfriend.
-
The documentary explores the life of a woman who grew up as a love child in a more conservative era.
Synonyms
58
8.2
A child born to parents who are not married, now an offensive word
11
4.9
A child born to parents who are not married to each other
1
9.9
A child whose parents are not married to each other
1
9.9
A child born when the parents are not married
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'love' + 'child' transparently suggest a child born from a romantic relationship, but the specific idiomatic nuance — that the child is born to unmarried parents (born out of wedlock) — is a cultural/legal sense not fully derivable from the words alone. A B1 learner who knows both words might guess a related meaning but could miss the precise social/idiomatic implication without exposure, so the expression is only partially predictable.
Etymology
The phrase love child comes from a gentle image: love points to the parents' romantic relationship and child is the baby. So the phrase quietly refers to a baby whose parents are 'not married to each other'.