Childer
Children. The plural form that standard English replaced with 'children'. Heard in older Ulster Scots and Northern English speech, now mostly preserved by older speakers and in dialect writing.
Etymology
From Middle English 'childer' / 'childre', from Old English 'ċildra' / 'ċildru' - the original genitive plural form. The eventually-standardised 'children' was a later regularisation; 'childer' is the older form. Northern English and Ulster Scots preserved it after standard English moved on. An 1839 Northern English citation refers to 'a great family a childer'; a 1906 source uses it directly in mainstream prose.
In a sentence
"The childer were running round the kitchen and her trying to get the tea on."
Historical notes
Childer is a small piece of preserved English grammar more than a vocabulary item: the genitive plural that English lost everywhere else. Modern Ulster speakers using 'childer' are unwittingly handling the same word-shape Anglo-Saxons used a thousand years ago. The word is mostly heard now from older speakers and in deliberately dialectal writing; younger Ulster speech has largely moved to 'kids' or 'weans'.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry childer n. (regional plural of child). · dictionary