changeling
Americannoun
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changelings
plural
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a child surreptitiously or unintentionally substituted for another.
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(in folklore) an ugly, stupid, or strange child left by fairies in place of a pretty, charming child.
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Philately. a postage stamp that, by accident or intention, has been chemically changed in color.
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Archaic.
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a renegade or turncoat.
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an imbecile.
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noun
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a child believed to have been exchanged by fairies for the parents' true child
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archaic
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an idiot
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a fickle or changeable person
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Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of changeling
Explanation
A changeling is a child who is suspected to not be a couple’s real child. As the myth goes, a changeling was substituted by fairies. Do you ever feel like your parents might not be your real parents? Then maybe you’re a changeling. A changeling is part of a switcheroo by fairies who switch out a couple’s real baby with another baby. The new baby is the changeling. Fortunately, fairies are mythical creatures, so the concept of a changeling is also fanciful. The -ling part appears in many other Middle and Old English words: underling, hireling, duckling, and yearling, to name a few.
Vocabulary lists containing changeling
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Wuthering Heights
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The Road
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
That metaphor of the outcast changeling, rejected for who she is at her core by a rigid society, earned a loyal following — and accolades, including an Eisner Award and a National Book Award nomination.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
A changeling is what a fairy or demon or troll leaves behind when it kidnaps a human baby.
From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2023
A New York Times review of the film said Oberon had "perfectly caught the restless, changeling spirit of the Brontë heroine".
From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2022
A deliciously twisty spin on a changeling story, Cuckoo Song is aimed at young readers.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 31, 2019
It was as if he were a changeling, a troubled child not so secretly adopted by the Icelanders, but with love and without foreboding.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
They would have had good reason to link up with changelings after what happened in “Deep Space Nine.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2023
Unless the Founders themselves chose to withhold the cure from certain changelings.
From New York Times ● Mar. 30, 2023
“The Changeling” by Victor LaValle uses as its inspiration the stories of changelings, false doubles left in place of human children who are stolen by fairies.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 16, 2020
O changelings of the world: we go up and down the ladder in this circus called life, and we are more entertaining than clowns, more grotesque than freaks.
From The New Yorker ● May 1, 2017
Little human changelings, raised in Faerie, but not educated with the Gentry as we are.
From "The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
