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Changeling   Listen
Changeling

noun
1.
A person of subnormal intelligence.  Synonyms: cretin, half-wit, idiot, imbecile, moron, retard.
2.
A child secretly exchanged for another in infancy.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Changeling" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the Y.M.C.A. that club could never have come into existence. And the association deserves credit not only for generosity in material things, but for its liberal spirit. The club was not run according to Y.M.C.A. rules, and was an embarrassing changeling child in their nursery, just as it was a suspicious innovation under ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... he taught her, and their names, And how the chartless mariner they guide; Of quivering light that in the zenith flames, Of monsters in the deep sea caves that hide; Then changed the theme to fairy records wild, Enchanted moor, elf dame, or changeling child. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... silly honest Fool did you mistake me for? what senseless modest thing? Death, am I grown so despicable? have I deserv'd no better from thy Love than to be taken for a virtuous Changeling? ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... hard to count that white man a teacher who tortured an ambitious Indian youth by frequently reminding the brave changeling that he was ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... believed, at one time, in Wales, that the Fairies exchanged their own weakly or deformed offspring for the strong children of mortals. The child supposed to have been left by the Fairies in the cradle, or elsewhere, was commonly called a changeling. This faith was not confined to Wales; it was as common in Ireland, Scotland, and England, as it was in Wales. Thus, in Spenser's Faery Queen, reference is made in the following words to this ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... and his eye fell. A certain anger rose within him; here was a Flora he disowned; she was hard; she was of a set colour; a settled, mature, undecorative manner; plain of speech, plain of habit - he had come near saying, plain of face. And this changeling called herself by the same name as the many-coloured, clinging maid of yore; she of the frequent laughter, and the many sighs, and the kind, stolen glances. And to make all worse, she took the upper hand with him, which ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... so many Runic secrets, explained to me what I have often felt toward myself, when he tells of the poor changeling, who, turned from the door of her adopted home, sat down on a stone and so pitied herself that she wept. Yet me also, the wonderful bird, singing in the wild forest, has tempted ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... thou with thy butterfly wings in thy light summer garment, thou that hoverest aloft, and flittest over the mountains, and sweepest along the earth! from the airy changeling of the caterpillar, up or down to the lion and to man, ye all of you, fostering a brief momentary spark in you, like the glance from the flint and steel ... gone is the red bubbling up of the spark ... and again a mere slough is lying before us, after its short dream of life ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... my lips, but at my heart there raged the blackest and most unbridled terror. What if he failed? And oh, tenfold worse! what if he succeeded? What detested and unnatural changeling would appear before me to claim my hand? And could there, I asked myself with a dreadful sinking, be any truth in his boasts of an assured victory over my reluctance? I knew him, indeed, to be masterful, to lead my life at a sign. Suppose, then, this experiment to succeed; suppose him to return ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... home from his successful sales, he found a changeling. His wife was not so different in looks or words as in a subtle something he could not define. She laughed at his jokes, and even, in a gentle way, ventured pleasantries of her own; but a strange languor hung about her. It might have been called patience, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... That changeling, lean and icy-lipped, Touched crust, and bone, and groat, and lo! Beneath her finger taper-tipped The magic ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare

... release Titania while Puck is made to minister to the other victims of the charm? Is Oberon's explanation of the Fairy Queen's sudden change of heart about the changeling quite satisfactory, or does it simply appear so by a sort of artistic sleight-of-hand characteristic of Shakespeare in small touches at ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke

... with spirit. Isabella mixes in the festive scene, disguised in a domino, made of black sticking-plaster. Czerina overhears that she is a usurper and a changeling, and expresses her surprise in a line most unblushingly stolen from Fitz-Ball and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... The King doth keep his revels here to-night; Take heed, the queen come not within his sight. For Oberon is passing fell and wrath, Because that she, as her attendant, hath A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king; She never had so sweet a changeling. And jealous Oberon would have the child Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild: But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy: Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy: And now they never meet in grove, or green, By fountain clear, or spangled starlight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... delivers to me the changeling whom he wants to use as his Deus ex machina," replied Bonaparte. "My dear sir, it helps you not at all to begin again this system of lies. Your anger has betrayed you, and I have succeeded in outwitting the fox. The so-called 'son of the king is alive;' that has escaped ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... thou wast ever alien to our skies, A wistful stray of radiance on this earth, A changeling with deep memories in thine eyes Mistily gazing thro' our loud-voiced mirth To some fair land beyond the gates of birth; Yet as a star thro' clouds, thou still didst shed Through our dark world thy lovelier, rarer ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... first purely religious, rapidly developed a comic side, which by degrees became their central theme. The moral purpose of the performance was forgotten; and the Church disowned its evil changeling. To none of these early plays can the term "drama" be accurately applied; for each and all of them lack plot. They are merely a series of disconnected scenes, pictures having small connection and less development. The idea of pursuing a single, slowly developing story to its climax ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... constructively, it had become a fierce though governed passion with both—to learn something of the spiritual life coursing back of the material universe. Equally slowly and inevitably had the two come to believe that the little changeling at the lodge held some wordless clue, some unconscious knowledge as to that outer sphere, that surrounding, peopled ether, in which, under their apparent rationality, the two had come to believe. Yet ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... I should do it in the day. I do not sit up enough to hurt me. I have, on an average, three hours' night-work, five days in the week; and if that can damage a strong fellow like me, call me a puny changeling." ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... is delightful as the whimsical comedian who stops a funeral to make love to the corpse's widow; but when, in the next act, he is replaced by a stage villain who smothers babies and offs with people's heads, we are revolted at the imposture and repudiate the changeling. Faulconbridge, Coriolanus, Leontes are admirable descriptions of instinctive temperaments: indeed the play of Coriolanus is the greatest of Shakespear's comedies; but description is not philosophy; and comedy neither ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... in the cylinder, he inspected the changeling carefully. It was, he thought, the revolver Lane Fleming had kept in the drawer of the gunroom desk. There was no obstruction in the two-inch barrel, the weapon had not been either fired or cleaned recently, the firing-pin had not been shortened, the mainspring showed the proper ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... this. Being seized with a peculiar desire to learn conjuring, he had made the acquaintance of an eerie and supernatural young man, who instructed him in the Black Art: a gaunt Mephistophelian sort of individual, who our subject half thought was a changeling. Our subject has not quite got over the idea yet, though for practical social purposes he calls him Lucian Oldershaw. Our subject met Lucian Oldershaw. 'That night,' as Shakespeare says, ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... envious de Vergys, singularly conspired to hasten the final dismemberment of the coveted province. Causing first the exhaustion of the Gruyere revenues, through the forced and loveless alliance with the ruling and legitimate line, the de Vergy strain produced in Michel a changeling heir, who was empty of heart as he was bankrupt in purse. Thus as the old order of feudalism, yielding to the progress of free thought, free speech and free faith, in the whole extent of Europe crumbled and fell, then was fulfilled in the already ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... and from my bed They stole my babe, and left behind A thing I hate, a thing I dread— A changeling who is old and blind; He's moaning all the night and day For those who took ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... stranger. He might have forgotten his own name, and the mother that bore him; but he had learned how to learn, and was for the first time in his life wide awake. This was very much like saying that he was a new boy in the old skin; and this, again, was little better than a euphemism for changeling. Was he a changeling after all? The sage old woman whom we have already quoted asserted confidently that he was, and that, however much he pretended to ignorance, he really knew vastly more than any plain human child did or ought to know. And as a warrant for this opinion ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... Slave A Chant Dream-Life Rest The Tyrant and the Captive The Carver's Lesson Three Roses My Picture Gallery Sent to Heaven Never Again Listening Angels Golden Days Philip and Mildred Borrowed Thoughts Light and Shade A Changeling Discouraged If Thou couldst know The Warrior to his Dead Bride A Letter A Comforter Unseen A Remembrance of Autumn Three Evenings in a Life The Wind Expectation An Ideal Our Dead A Woman's Answer The Story of the Faithful Soul A Contrast The Bride's Dream The Angel's Bidding Spring Evening ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... the Thiodolf whom thou hast loved? no changeling of the Gods, but the man in whom men have trusted, the friend of Earth, the giver of life, the ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... of a thing on paper, or even in its last rehearsal, and the effect of it when it is performed before an audience which has paid to see it. It was no wonder he was dazed, for the opera he found himself listening to seemed like a changeling. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... festivities with which Lodron enlivened his brief sojourn at Antwerp, and he set forth without reluctance for that gloomy and terrible land of Spain, whence so rarely a Flemish traveller had returned. A changeling, as it were, from his cradle, he seemed completely transformed by his Spanish tuition, for he was educated and not sacrificed by Philip. When he returned to the Netherlands, after a twenty years' residence ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... apace; The cricket's chirp, the woodland murmur's swell, Bid nature's changeling melodies efface The glamour of yon phantom spell. The flashing morn adown the glist'ning aisles, A dew-embowered hill and grove and lea, With ruthless light will scatter fairy wiles, Nor leave my love ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... dining-house, of the class known among its frequenters by the denomination slap- bang, where the waitress, a bouncing young female of forty, is supposed to have made some impression on the susceptible Smallweed, of whom it may be remarked that he is a weird changeling to whom years are nothing. He stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish wisdom. If he ever lay in a cradle, it seems as if he must have lain there in a tail-coat. He has an old, old eye, has Smallweed; and he drinks and smokes in a monkeyish way; and his neck is stiff in his ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... For they're a sort of fools which fortune makes, And, after she has made 'em fools, forsakes. With Nature's oafs 'tis quite a diff'rent case, For Fortune favours all her idiot race. In her own nest the cuckoo eggs we find, O'er which she broods to hatch the changeling kind: No portion for her own she has to spare, So much she ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve

... of this region are "The Changeling," and "The New Wife and the Old." The ancient house which is the scene of the last named poem is still standing, and may be seen by passengers on the Boston and Maine road, near the Hampton station. It has a gambrel roof, and is on the left when the train is going westward. On ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... slight whirlwind of dust, like a mist-wreath curling down the valley, which, to their terrified apprehensions, became the chariot of the departing demon. Nothing could shake this belief; and in after ages the boy was spoken of as a changeling, left by some fairy, whose appointed sojourn had been then accomplished, the means for his release being fulfilled. Old Cicely became nigh crazed with the loss of her son; but Gamel, seriously pondering on these events, sought counsel ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... the creature for leaving such a unique specimen, at least," laughed Mr. Garth, completely mollified; (if you will not accuse us of an insane desire to make a pun). "Come, fairy changeling, and let's have ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... starts back. What a nose! The deceit is found out and the shepherds are very angry. Yet even in their anger they can hardly help laughing. Mak and Gill, however, are ready of wit. They will not own to the theft. It is a changeling child, they say. ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... that the "Essays of Elia" will be found to have kept their perfume, and the LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB to retain their old sweet savor, when "Sartor Resartus" has about as many readers as Bulwer's "Artificial Changeling," and nine tenths even of "Don Juan" lie darkening under the same deep dust that covers the rarely troubled ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... your family Call it "The Changeling." Why so? The family likeness all must see. (It squints ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various

... Chappell with Mr. Child, and there did hear Captain Cooke and his boy make a trial of an Anthem against tomorrow, which was brave musique. Then by water to Whitefriars to the Play-house, and there saw "The Changeling," the first time it hath been acted these twenty years, and it takes exceedingly. Besides, I see the gallants do begin to be tyred with the vanity and pride of the theatre actors who are indeed grown very proud and rich. Then by link home, and there to my book awhile and to bed. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... what must it have been at a time when I myself was in vain trying, year after year, to write a single Essay, nay, a single page or sentence; when I regarded the wonders of his pen with the longing eyes of one who was dumb and a changeling; and when, to be able to convey the slightest conception of my meaning to others in words, was the height of an almost hopeless ambition! But I never measured others' excellences by my own defects: though a sense ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... and the material fulfilment, and looked askance on the strenuous reign of Oliver,—that rugged boulder of primitive manhood lying lonely there on the dead level of the century,—as if some crooked changeling had been laid in the cradle instead of that fair babe of the Commonwealth they had dreamed. Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men, but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction; and those waves of enthusiasm on whose crumbling crests we sometimes ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell



Words linked to "Changeling" :   tyke, simpleton, tike, nipper, youngster, mongoloid, fry, minor, child, small fry, tiddler, shaver, kid, simple, nestling



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