[OE. stéopcild: see STEP-. Cf. OHG. stiufchint (MHG. stiefkint, mod.G. -kind).]
† 1. An orphan. Obs.
971. Blickl. Hom., 45. Þonne sæʓde Sanctus Paulus þæt se biscop nære miltsiende wydewum, ne steopcildum, ne nanum Godes þearfan.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., John xiv. 18. Ne læte ic eow steopcild.
a. 1300. E. E. Psalter xciii. 6. Widow and comeling slogh þai, And stepchildre þai drape al dai.
2. A stepson or stepdaughter.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 131. Þan studied sche stifly, as stepmoderes wol alle, To do dernly a despit to here stepchilderen.
1631. [see STEPFATHER].
1868. L. H. Morgan, Syst. Consanguinity (1870), 482. Since my brothers are my husbands their children by other wives would be my step-children.
1889. S. Walpole, Life Ld. John Russell, I. xiii. 340. Lord John went down with his children and stepchildren to Buckhurst.
b. transf. and fig.
1407–10. Hoccleve, Min. Poems (1892), 58. Let me no stepchyld been for I am he That hope haue in yow, confort & gladnesse.
c. 1450. Lovelich, Grail, xlviii. 365. Whiles that ȝe to God diden take, thanne was he to ȝow fadyr ful kynde … and sethen that stepchildren that ȝe ben, he hath ȝow forȝeten ful Clen.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., V. 266. It parts good friends, the step-child [sc. the young cuckoo] seldom offering any violence to its nurse.
1911. Q. Rev., Jan., 150. Ever since the days of Tegetthoff, the navy has been the step-child of both Parliaments, receiving only just sufficient grants to enable it to exist at all.
