wood-children

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
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
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