Stepbairn

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A stepchild. Scotland, UK, dialectal

Etymology

From Middle English stepbarn (“orphan”), from Old English stēopbearn (“orphan”), from Proto-West Germanic *steupabarn, from Proto-Germanic *steupabarną (“stepchild”), equivalent to step- + bairn. Cognate with Old High German stiofbarn (“stepchild”), Norwegian stebarn (“stepchild”) Danish stedbarn (“stepchild”), Swedish styvbarn (“stepchild”), Icelandic stjúpbarn (“stepchild”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.