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First attested in the Seokbo sangjeol (釋譜詳節 / 석보상절), 1447, as Middle Korean아ᄒᆡ〮 (Yale: àhóy), from earlier Old Korean阿孩(*ahoy). While the word is native, the second syllable was identified already in the 8th-century hyangga poem Anmin-ga with Middle Chinese孩(ɦʌi, “child”). Historically, the word was often mistakenly perceived as Sino-Korean, with the ateji spelling 兒孩. (The Middle Korean reading of 兒 was ᅀᆞ(zò).)
When it was finally dawn and she touched the child's forehead, she was relieved at the coolness she felt on her palm. She left the inside room and stared vacantly at the bluish twilight that penetrated the living room veranda.
(endearing)Used to refer to objects, typically in casual but polite settings such as when persuading a customer to buy a product.
As 애(ae, “guy; person”) is extremely colloquial, 아이(ai) is sometimes used to replace it in less colloquial writing, especially in the pronominal forms 걔(gyae), 얘(yae), 쟤(jae). This is less common in speech.
Such a replacement is even rarer when 애(ae) is being used non-pronominally, because 아이(ai) is perceived as being neither sufficiently colloquial as 애(ae) nor sufficiently non-colloquial as e.g. 사람(saram). It is very normal, if highly colloquial, to refer to American people in general as 미국애들(miguk ae-deul), but 미국아이들(miguk ai-deul) will usually refer specifically to American children.