Changeling (2 syl.)

A peevish, sickly child. The notion used to be that the fairies took a healthy child, and left in its place one of their starveling elves which never did kindly

“Oh, that it could be proved

That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged

In cradle-clothes our children as they lay,

And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet!

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.”

Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., i. 1.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.