orphan.
A person, especially a minor, both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died.
Meaning & usage
A person, especially a minor, both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died.
A person, especially a minor, whose parents have permanently abandoned them.
A young animal with no mother.
Anything that is unsupported, as by its source, provider or caretaker, by reason of the supporter's demise or decision to abandon.
A single line of type, beginning a paragraph, at the bottom of a column or page.
Any unreferenced object.
Where this word comes from
Late Middle English, from Late Latin orphanus, from Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “without parents, fatherless”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos. PIE word *h₃órbʰos Cognate with Sanskrit अर्भ (árbha), Latin orbus (“orphaned”), Old Armenian որբ (orb, “orphan”), Old High German erbi, arbi (German Erbe (“heir”)), Old English ierfa (“heir”). More at erf.
Deprived of parents (also orphaned).
She is an orphan child.
Remaining after the removal of some form of support.
With its government funding curtailed, the gun registry became an orphan program.
Where this word comes from
Late Middle English, from Late Latin orphanus, from Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “without parents, fatherless”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos. PIE word *h₃órbʰos Cognate with Sanskrit अर्भ (árbha), Latin orbus (“orphaned”), Old Armenian որբ (orb, “orphan”), Old High German erbi, arbi (German Erbe (“heir”)), Old English ierfa (“heir”). More at erf.
To deprive of parents (used almost exclusively in the passive).
What do you do when you come across two orphaned polar bear cubs?
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.
Where this word comes from
Late Middle English, from Late Latin orphanus, from Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “without parents, fatherless”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos. PIE word *h₃órbʰos Cognate with Sanskrit अर्भ (árbha), Latin orbus (“orphaned”), Old Armenian որբ (orb, “orphan”), Old High German erbi, arbi (German Erbe (“heir”)), Old English ierfa (“heir”). More at erf.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.