ˈlove-child
A child born out of wedlock.
| 1805 E. de Acton Nuns of Desert II. 10 Miss Blenheim being, what in that country is denominated, a love-child. 1820 Shelley Hymn to Mercury xxxviii. 6 And where the ambrosial nymph..Bore the Saturnian's love-child, Mercury. 1889 G. D. Leslie Lett. to Marco xxi. (1893) 140 Many of the little children..called themselves ‘love children’. ‘Please, sir, she's a love child.’ 1894 Froude Erasmus i. 2 Legend says that Erasmus was what is called a love-child. |
¶ allusively.
| 1884 Symonds Shaks. Predecess. xv. 618 No sane critic will maintain that the ‘Jew of Malta’ was a love-child of its maker's genius. |