stepchild
Americannoun
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stepchildren
plural
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a child of one's spouse by a previous marriage.
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any person, organization, affiliate, project, etc., that is not properly treated, supported, or appreciated.
This agency is the stepchild when appropriations are handed out.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of stepchild
before 1000; Middle English; Old English stēopcild. See step-, child
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:
An afterthought if not a redheaded stepchild, though expect affronted fellow media outlets to freak out because of what NBC News once was, not what it is.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
“It’ll basically illustrate, if we don’t already realize it, that walkability has been sort of a very forgotten stepchild of all of our transportation planning and building over the years.”
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026
In one episode you'd be doing "outrageously stupid", "slapstick" story lines, and the next you'd be sobbing over the coffin of your dead stepchild, Woodburne says.
From BBC ● Dec. 10, 2025
One Moneyist Facebook Group member gave the flipside of your dilemma, from the perspective of a stepchild.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 11, 2025
Virtually the same applies in Egyptology, in which the study of the Ptolemaic “late period” has long been the neglected stepchild of a discipline engrossed by the Rameseses and Thut- moses of high antiquity.
From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro
I was 39, already twice divorced and desperate to outrun the pain of losing my husband and three stepchildren just five months prior.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
He wanted to let his daughter, Stella Banderas, and stepchildren Dakota Johnson and Alexander Bauer do what they wanted with their lives so that they would pay attention when he corrected them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
At the time, she had a five-month-old baby and two stepchildren.
From BBC ● May 5, 2026
That would not be an uncommon or unreasonable thing to do, so your stepchildren can wait their sweet time for their share of this family home.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 10, 2026
When he died, in 1638, he bequeathed his herd of goats to his stepchildren and to his wife.
From Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century by Annie Lash Jester
Definitions 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.
