changeling

Tanımlar (İngilizce)

1. isim In pre-modern European folklore: an infant of a magical creature that was secretly exchanged for a human infant. In British, Irish and Scandinavian mythology the exchanged infants were thought to be those of fairies, sprites or trolls; in other places, they were ascribed to demons, devils, or witches.

   “[S]he, as her attendant, hath / A louely boy ſtollen, from an Indian king: / She neuer had ſo ſweete a changeling.”

2. isim A person or object (especially when regarded as inferior) secretly exchanged for something else.
3. isim An infant secretly exchanged with another infant deliberately or by mistake; a swapling.
4. isim An organism which can change shape to mimic others; a shape-shifter.
5. isim A person apt to change their loyalty or thinking; a waverer.

   “To face the garment of rebellion / With ſome fine colour that may pleaſe the eye / Of fickle changlings and poore diſcontents, / Which gape and rub the elbow at the newes / Of hurly-burly innouation, [...]”

6. isim An idiot, a simpleton.

   “They alſo obſerue Lunaticks and changelings, and the Coniurer writeth downe their ſayings in a booke, groueling on the ground, as if he whiſperd to the Deuill to tell him the truth, and ſo expoundeth the letter, as it were by inſpiration.”

7. sıfat Changeable, fickle, inconstant, wavering.

   “Away thou changeling motley humouriſt, / Leave me, and in this ſtanding wooden cheſt, / Conſorted with theſe few books, let me lye / In priſon, and here be coffin'd, when I dye.”