orphan
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
- orphane (obsolete)
Etymology[edit]
Late Middle English, from Late Latin orphanus, from Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “without parents, fatherless”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos.
Cognate with Sanskrit अर्भ (árbha), Latin orbus (“orphaned”), Old High German erbi, arbi (German Erbe (“heir”)), Old English ierfa (“heir”). More at erf.
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɔːfən/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɔɹfən/
- (dialectal, archaic) IPA(key): /ˈɔːɹfənt/ (see orphant)
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)fən
- Homophone: often (non-rhotic accents with the lot–cloth split)
Noun[edit]
orphan (plural orphans)
- A person, especially a minor, both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died.
- 1956, Delano Ames, chapter 9, in Crime out of Mind[1]:
- Rudolf was the bold, bad Baron of traditional melodrama. Irene was young, as pretty as a picture, fresh from a music academy in England. He was the scion of an ancient noble family; she an orphan without money or friends.
- A person, especially a minor, whose parents have permanently abandoned them.
- A young animal with no mother.
- (figuratively) Anything that is unsupported, as by its source, provider or caretaker, by reason of the supporter's demise or decision to abandon.
- (typography) A single line of type, beginning a paragraph, at the bottom of a column or page.
- Antonym: widow
- (computing) Any unreferenced object.
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
person whose (parent or) parents have died
|
single line of type at the bottom of page
|
Adjective[edit]
orphan (not comparable)
- Deprived of parents (also orphaned).
- She is an orphan child.
- (by extension, figuratively) Remaining after the removal of some form of support.
- With its government funding curtailed, the gun registry became an orphan program.
Derived terms[edit]
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
deprived of parents
Verb[edit]
orphan (third-person singular simple present orphans, present participle orphaning, simple past and past participle orphaned)
- (transitive) To deprive of parents (used almost exclusively in the passive)
- What do you do when you come across two orphaned polar bear cubs?
- (transitive, computing) To make unavailable, as by removing the last remaining pointer or reference to.
- When you removed that image tag, you orphaned the resized icon.
- Removing categories orphans pages from the main category tree.
Conjugation[edit]
Conjugation of orphan
infinitive | (to) orphan | ||
---|---|---|---|
present tense | past tense | ||
1st-person singular | orphan | orphaned | |
2nd-person singular | orphan, orphanest† | orphaned, orphanedst† | |
3rd-person singular | orphans, orphaneth† | orphaned | |
plural | orphan | ||
subjunctive | orphan | orphaned | |
imperative | orphan | — | |
participles | orphaning | orphaned |
Translations[edit]
deprive of parents
|
References[edit]
- Jones, M. Jean (August 1973) The Regional English of the Former Inhabitants of Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains[2], University of Tennessee, Knoxville, page 114
- orphan at OneLook Dictionary Search
Orphan in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₃erbʰ-
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Late Latin
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/ɔː(ɹ)fən
- Rhymes:English/ɔː(ɹ)fən/2 syllables
- English terms with homophones
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
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- en:Stock characters
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