Stepkid

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A child who is the son or daughter of one's husband, wife, or partner from an earlier relationship
2. The offspring of a person's current spouse or partner that they did not have themselves, informally called a stepchild
3. An informal term for a child brought into a family through a parent's remarriage or new partnership

Etymology: "Stepkid" is a plain compound: the prefix "step-" joined to "kid," the familiar word for a child. The prefix "step-" comes from Old English "steop-," which originally carried the sense of bereavement, as in "stepfather" and "stepmother" from words meaning someone who had lost a spouse and married again. The "step-" in these compounds therefore marks a child whose parent has remarried, linking the child to a new parental figure through marriage rather than blood.

Synonyms: stepchild, stepson, stepdaughter