Noun: orphan
| Singular | orphan |
| Plural | orphans |
Sample Sentences
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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. [1956, Delano Ames, chapter 9, in Crime out of Mind:]
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An orphan isn't harmful in a language that has garbage collection, such as Java. However, reducing the number of orphans can be expected to improve code performance. [2003, David D. Riley, The Object of Data Abstraction and Structures Using Java, page 234:]
Nouns inflected like orphan
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. Late Middle English, from Late Latin orphanus, from Ancient Greek ὀρφανός (orphanós, “without parents, fatherless”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃órbʰos.
2. PIE word
3. *h₃órbʰos
4. 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. See: Latin Nouns '
orbus', German Nouns '
Erbe', Old English Nouns '
ierfa'.
Verbs referencing "orphan"
German Nouns
Arbeit, Finnish Nouns
orpo.