Noun: elfin
| Singular | elfin |
| Plural | elfins |
Sample Sentences
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It was quite an expedition that Ida met, a kind of elfin's rout it looked in the moonlight, children and animals and a fairy-like presence with a face like a moon-lily, all scampering and squealing and whoofing and miauling in a merry game they were making of their progress. [1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 291:]
Nouns inflected like elfin
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English elven, from Old English elfen, ælfen (“nymph, spirit, fairy”), feminine of elf, ælf (“elf”), equivalent to elf + -in. Cognate with Middle High German elbinne (“a fairy, nymph”). See: Middle English Nouns '
elven', Old English Nouns '
elfen'.