Word of the Day Archive
Thursday October 28, 2004
foundling \FOWND-ling\ , noun:
A deserted or abandoned infant; a child found without a parent or caretaker.
Some of her desires were more altruistic: she wanted to "send Phyllis to school for a year, take Auntie May for a winter in the Isle of Pines," and "raise foundlings."
-- Tim Page, Dawn Powell: A Biography
Then one day her daughter returns home with a foundling, an abandoned baby boy.
-- Charles R. Larson, Washington Post, September 26, 1999
Foundling comes from Old English foundling, fundling, from finden, "to find" + the suffix -ling.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for foundling
