† congeonn.

Etymology: The phonology and final stress in verse show this word to be of French origin. In all probability cangun in the earliest quot. is the same word, and stands for cangiun or canjun (g for j being not infrequent in Middle English, compare the form kongon ), representing an Old Northern French *cangiun , cangeon < late Latin cambio , cambiōnem (cited in Grimm Deut. Mythol., translated by Stallybrass 1888, vol. IV, 1754, and thence in Henschell's Du Cange), a changeling n. and adj. (German wechselbalg a child of an incubus, demon, or hag, substituted for a human child) < cambīre to change. The Middle English forms have suffered at the hands of bad copyists and editors, who have turned conjon into coujon , conioun (= conjoun ) into coinoun , with other blundered spellings. A derivation < cambio fits the sense, for changelings were popularly held to grow up dwarfs or deformed in body (compare sense 1), and deficient in intellect sense 2), and to be called one was a grievous insult (senses 4, 5). The difficulties are (1) the apparent rarity of the word in French, where the only instance yet cited is one of 1427 in Du Cange, repeated by Godefroy, under the form changon ‘terme injurieux’, which is apparently the central French form, standing for changeon, chanjon; (2) the Anglo-Norman French or early Middle English change of can- to con-; this took place before the retraction of the stress from the final syllable, and may have been owing to association with the prefix con-.