changeling
a baby secretly used to replace another
TRANSLATION
changeling = untergeschobenes Kind, der Wechselbalg changeling = ein wankelmütiger Mensch --- GOOGLE INDEX changeling: approximately 1,300,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Her second album is an inventive concept set, based around Scottish folk tales of CHANGELINGS.
(BBC News)
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New York is a CHANGELING, a different city to everyone who passes through.
(New York Times)
(BBC News)
---
New York is a CHANGELING, a different city to everyone who passes through.
(New York Times)
Did you
know?
changeling
noun
- a baby who is secretly used to take the place of another baby (mythical)
(Cambridge Dictionary)
---
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in European folklore a changeling is a deformed or imbecilic offspring of fairies or elves substituted by them secretly for a human infant. As the legend goes, the abducted human children are given to the devil or used to strengthen fairy stock.
The return of the original child may be effected by making the changeling laugh or by torturing it. This latter belief was responsible for numerous cases of actual child abuse. The existence of changelings is believed to stem from the idea that infants are susceptible to demonic possession.
A changeling can also refer to a baby that was mistaken for another, so that it lives its life with a family other than its biological one. This is also referred to as a baby swap. Furthermore, changeling has a more general context of a person or thing that tends to frequently change its appearance or behaviour.
Jim Morrison of the 60s rock group The Doors even wrote a song about being a changeling:
I live uptown
I live downtown
I live all around
I had money, and I had none
I had money, and I had none
But I never been so broke
That I couldn't leave town
I'm a Changeling
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"When my brother wanted to annoy me when we were young, he would tell me I was a changeling."
---
Thanks to Christiane for suggesting today's word!
noun
- a baby who is secretly used to take the place of another baby (mythical)
(Cambridge Dictionary)
---
According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in European folklore a changeling is a deformed or imbecilic offspring of fairies or elves substituted by them secretly for a human infant. As the legend goes, the abducted human children are given to the devil or used to strengthen fairy stock.
The return of the original child may be effected by making the changeling laugh or by torturing it. This latter belief was responsible for numerous cases of actual child abuse. The existence of changelings is believed to stem from the idea that infants are susceptible to demonic possession.
A changeling can also refer to a baby that was mistaken for another, so that it lives its life with a family other than its biological one. This is also referred to as a baby swap. Furthermore, changeling has a more general context of a person or thing that tends to frequently change its appearance or behaviour.
Jim Morrison of the 60s rock group The Doors even wrote a song about being a changeling:
I live uptown
I live downtown
I live all around
I had money, and I had none
I had money, and I had none
But I never been so broke
That I couldn't leave town
I'm a Changeling
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"When my brother wanted to annoy me when we were young, he would tell me I was a changeling."
---
Thanks to Christiane for suggesting today's word!
