Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A child whose parents are dead.
- n. A child who has been deprived of parental care and has not been adopted.
- n. A young animal without a mother.
- n. One that lacks support, supervision, or care: A lack of corporate interest has made the subsidiary an orphan.
- n. An orphan technology or product.
- n. A line of type beginning a new paragraph at the bottom of a column or page.
- n. A short line of type at the bottom of a paragraph, column, or page; a widow.
- adj. Deprived of parents.
- adj. Intended for orphans: an orphan home.
- adj. Lacking support, supervision, or care.
- adj. Not developed or marketed, especially on account of being commercially unprofitable: "an aggregation of every orphan technology at the Pentagon, stuff that's been around for years that nobody would buy” ( Harper's).
- transitive v. To deprive (a child or young animal) of a parent or parents.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A person, especially a minor, both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died.
- n. A young animal with no mother.
- n. Anything that is unsupported, as by its source, provider or caretaker, by reason of the supporter's demise or decision to abandon.
- n. A single line of type, beginning a paragraph, at the bottom of a column or page.
- n. Any unreferenced object.
- adj. Deprived of parents (also orphaned).
- adj. Remaining after the removal of some form of support.
- v. To deprive of parents (used almost exclusively in the passive)
- v. (computing) To make unavailable, as by unlinking the last remaining pointer to.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Bereaved of parents, or (sometimes) of one parent.
- n. A child bereaved of both father and mother; sometimes, also, a child who has but one parent living.
- transitive v. To cause to become an orphan; to deprive of parents.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Bereft of parents; fatherless, motherless, or without either father or mother; bereaved: said of a child or a young and dependent person.
- Not under control or protection analogous to that of a parent; unprotected; unassisted.
- Of or belonging to a child bereft of either parent or of both parents.
- n. A child bereaved of one parent or of both parents, generally the latter.
- To reduce to the state of being an orphan; bereave of parents.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. someone or something who lacks support or care or supervision
- n. a young animal without a mother
- n. the first line of a paragraph that is set as the last line of a page or column
- n. a child who has lost both parents
- v. deprive of parents
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
-
She clenched her teeth and grimaced as if pronouncing the word orphan filled her mouth with castor oil.
-
It matters because the term orphan carries enormous emotional weight.
-
He was so sweet, but I was afraid that the moment he heard the word orphan, he would back away and pretend he never knew me.
-
That was how Angela had first met Myles’s mother, three weeks after discovering the meaning of the word orphan herself.
-
The budgeteers claim $630 million in cuts from what are called "orphan earmarks," or construction that never started, and $2 billion more for transportation projects, some of which were likely to be canceled.
-
"My Year of Flops" covers some 50 underappreciated pictures; every troubled orphan is assessed and deemed a Failure, a Fiasco or a Secret Success.
Book Review Roundup: Movie Flops, Reality TV And The Constitution
-
Also gives us a strong First Amendment interest in orphan works.
-
The adopted orphan is Jewish just like the rest of us (in fact, one is barred from even mentioning to his face that he was not born Jewish, just as with all converts) and benefits from following Kashrut.
-
About a decade ago, I accidentally launched into a sub-hobby of genealogy -- one I refer to as orphan heirloom rescues.
-
Against all odds, Jamal, an orphan from the slums of Mumbai, has correctly answered almost every single question on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.
gcastro commented on the word orphan
saw the movie orphan and thats where i saw it
October 31, 2010
PossibleUnderscore commented on the word orphan
"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."
-Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
July 29, 2009
milosrdenstvi commented on the word orphan
Not to be mistaken for 'often'.
August 20, 2008