Word.ws English Dictionary

merchild

merchild noun: the young of either sex of a legendary creature, human from the waist up, fishlike from the waist down.

Noun

merchild (plural merchildren)

  1. The young of either sex of a legendary creature, human from the waist up, fishlike from the waist down.
    • The fish-tailed merchild carved in crumbling stone
      Wreathed with loose straggling roses, reigns alone...1904, Thomas Bird Mosher, The Bibelot, page 160
    • There were mermaids with gold chains around slinky long tails, swimming along with little merchildren.2003, Liz Kessler, The Tail of Emily Windsnap, Scholastic, →ISBN, page 57
    Synonyms:
    merkid

Synonyms of merchild

Forms of merchild

pluralmerchildren

Origin of merchild

From mer- + child.

Questions about merchild

What does merchild mean?
Merchild means the young of either sex of a legendary creature, human from the waist up, fishlike from the waist down.
What part of speech is merchild?
Merchild is a noun.
What is the plural of merchild?
The plural of merchild is merchildren.

Words near merchild in the dictionary

  1. mercheens
  2. merches
  3. merchet
  4. merchets
  5. merchetum
  6. merchild
  7. merchildren
  8. merching
  9. Merchiston
  10. merci
  11. merci buckets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: merchild (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “merchild.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/merchild. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.