noun
orphan
a child who has lost both parents
Where it comes from
English borrowed orphan through Anglo-French and Late Latin orphanus from Greek orphanos, a child left without parents. The reconstructed Indo-European family concerned someone bereft or transferred after a death.
How the meaning developed
The word broadened from a parentless child to anything deprived of support or connection. Printers call a paragraph's first line stranded at the bottom of a page an orphan, while technology can leave files and processes orphaned.
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Sources
Definitions adapted from Open English WordNet where applicable. License and attribution. Word-history text comes from Lexifour’s sourced social research; pages are assembled automatically, not individually fact-checked on every update.
Updated 2026-09-25. Report a correction.