wood-child

Noun

wood-child (plural wood-children)

1. (literary) A child that lives in the woods.
   • Rob not the Primrose! - for her pallid bloom
     Long by the wayside tarries,
     And the wood-child homeward through the deep'ning gloom
     In its lap, rejoicing, carries.1841 June 18, The Albion, New York, page 1, column 1
   • Months passed on, and the years, circling in varied costume over the path of the wood-child, led forward her opening life.1848 February, The Columbian Magazine, New York, page 73, column 2
2. (literary, obsolete, offensive) A Native American or Amerindian.
   • And all the elements of earth
     Obeyed their high behest.
     And the wood-child trembled as he said,
     "Alabama" - here we rest.1855, W. W. Fosdick, Ariel, and Other Poems, New York: Bunce and Brother, page 67
   • Waiting the true pioneers, strong of heart, to succeed them.
     When from the east comes the vanguard of civilization,
     Vanish the wood children, perish and disappear slowly
     Off from the face of earth, even as of old did the glacier.1902, Year Book of the Old Setters' Association, Johnson County, Iowa City, page 19
3. A fairy or elf that inhabits the woods.
   • A woman who good-naturedly gave her breast to a crying Wood-child, was rewarded by its mother by a gift of the bark on which it was lying.1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 230