orbity
Definitions
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- verb A bereavement by loss of parents or children; the state of being orbate; orbation.
Examples
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Nothing seems to have been more universally dreaded by the ancients than orbity, or want of children; and, indeed, to a man who has survived all the companions of his youth, all who have participated his pleasures and his cares, have been engaged in the same events, and filled their minds with the same conceptions, this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.
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His progeny may never be his posterity; he may go out of the world less related than he came into it; and, considering the frequent mortality in friends and relations, in such a term of time, he may pass away divers years in sorrow and black habits, and leave none to mourn for himself; orbity may be his inheritance, and riches his repentance.
Note
The word 'orbity' ultimately comes from a Latin word meaning 'bereaved'.
