orphan
/ˈɔːf(ə)n
/noun
1A child whose parents are dead: he was left an orphan as a small boy [as modifier]: an orphan girl orphan chimps...
- She grew up an orphan, her parents having been killed in a battle which overtook their hometown.
- The Earl had suggested that David pretend to be an orphan whose parents had been American gentility.
- This three-month old baby escaped with a fractured wrist, but is now an orphan as both parents were killed.
2 Printing The first line of a paragraph set as the last line of a page or column, considered undesirable.
verb [with object]
Make (a child) an orphan: John was orphaned at 12...
- By the time he was a young teenager, he and his brother were orphaned, alone and destitute.
- The boy who is an orphan was orphaned when his parents died in short succession in 1992.
- He was orphaned at the age of nine, and got a job as a cabin boy, and through sheer hard graft, worked his way up the ranks.
Derivatives
orphanhood
/ noun ...- Ill health can also be an important cause of poverty through loss of income, catastrophic health expenses, and orphanhood.
- From boyhood, he learned to keep his feelings to himself, repressing memories of his father and of the emotional impact of early orphanhood.
- During the Long First Half of the Twentieth Century, one of the most important factors in the rising age of home-leaving was declining adult mortality, which led to declining rates of orphanhood.
Origin
Late Middle English: via late Latin from Greek orphanos 'bereaved'.