elf-child

English

Noun

elf-child (plural elf-children)

  1. A child of an elf; a young or infant elf, especially one that has been left as a changeling.
    • 1823 September 1, The Atheneum, or, Spirit of the English Magazines, Boston, page 424, column 1:
      “Good-wife,” said the miller, “as sure as mill stones run round, that's an elfwoman and that's an elfchild, — or they are the fair resemblances, made by the foul spirit of a mother and bairn, for deceiving thee and me, and bringing us to shame.”
    • 1882, Jean Ingelow, Don Juan, volume I, Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, page 25:
      [A]nd there the baby was charmed away from her, and an elf-child left in her arms.
    • 1890, M.A. Curtois, Elf-Knights, London: Remington and Co., page 2:
      As a result of this miserable union one elf was left alone, the Elf-child whose birth in the woods had first disclosed the fact[.]
    • 1896, Maidie Dickson, The Saga of the Sea-swallow: With the Story of Greenfeather the Changeling, London: A.D. Innes and Co., page 94:
      “No wonder, then, when I was an elf-child here, and saw the little fellow I used to sport and fight with, grow pale, and pine away, it was in great perplexity of mind I was.”
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