hedgeborn

English

Etymology

From hedge +‎ born.

Adjective

hedgeborn (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Born under a hedge or of low birth.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swine

2. (obsolete) growing in a hedge
   • 1869, George Eliot, How Lisa Loved the King:

     The trader's child, whose soaring spirit rose
     As hedge-born aloe-flowers that rarest years disclose

References

“hedgeborn”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.