Meanings
plural elf-children
- A child of an elf; a young or infant elf, especially one that has been left as a changeling.
[A]nd there the baby was charmed away from her, and an elf-child left in her arms.
1882, Jean Ingelow, Don Juan, volume I, Leipzig: Bernard Tauchnitz, page 253 more examples
“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.”
1823 September 1, The Atheneum, or, Spirit of the English Magazines, Boston, page 424, column 1As a result of this miserable union one elf was left alone, the Elf-child whose birth in the woods had first disclosed the fact[.]
1890, M.A. Curtois, Elf-Knights, London: Remington and Co., page 2“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.”
1896, Maidie Dickson, The Saga of the Sea-swallow: With the Story of Greenfeather the Changeling, London: A.D. Innes and Co., page 94
Cite this entry
elf-child. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/elf-child
“elf-child.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/elf-child. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “elf-child,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/elf-child.
Source: elf-child on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.