changeling

From change +‎ -ling.

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃeɪnd͡ʒlɪŋ/

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changeling (plural changelings)

1. (mythology) In pre-modern European mythology, an infant that was secretly exchanged for a mother's own baby by an evil creature. (In British, Irish and Scandinavian mythology the exchanged infants were thought to be those of fairies, sprites or trolls; in other places, they were ascribed to witches, devils, or demons.)
   • 1961, Muriel Saint Clare Byrne, Elizabethan Life in Town and Country, page 285:

     His nurse had told him all about changelings, and how the little people would always try to steal a beautiful human child out of its cradle and put in its stead one of their own ailing, puking brats […]

2. (informal, rare) An infant secretly exchanged with another infant by mistake or by human doing; swapling.
3. (science fiction and fantasy) An organism which can change shape to mimic others.
4. (obsolete) A simpleton; an idiot.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Macaulay to this entry?)

   • Dryden

     Changelings and fools of heaven, and thence shut out.

5. (obsolete) One apt to change; a waverer.
   • Shakespeare

     Fickle changelings.

• (fairy's child): auf (obsolete), oaf (obsolete)
• (being that can change shape): shape-shifter
• (a child exchanged for another): swapling