MEANING
1. A child whose parents have died, usually both, though sometimes only one.
2. Something left without the support, protection, or connection it previously had or needed.
3. To cause a child to lose one or both parents through death.
Use it for
describing a child bereaved of parents; showing parental death changing a child’s circumstances; distinguishing parental loss from ordinary separationDistinguishes parental bereavement from other kinds of loss, with a separate metaphor for things left unsupported. Writing functions: Mourning / Loss.
Words that belong together
- a war orphan
- an orphan child
- become an orphan
On the page
The war left him an orphan with only a photograph to identify his family.
As a child, she feared becoming an orphan more than she feared the dark.
After the laboratory closed, the archive became an institutional orphan.
The unfinished film remained an orphan, claimed by no studio and screened by none.
The epidemic orphaned three children in the same house.
Word forms
- Base
- orphan
- Past tense
- orphaned
- Past participle
- orphaned
- Present participle
- orphaning
Usage notes
Countable noun: orphan, orphans. Verb: orphans; orphaned; orphaned; orphaning; often passive. One or both parents may be meant, though the strongest usual sense is loss of both. Not every child living in an orphanage has lost both parents. Register: neutral. Commonness: common; typographic and institutional extensions are context-dependent (dictionary-informed qualitative editorial estimate; not a measured frequency).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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