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Glite Dictionary
🧒 A parentless child 🧒 To lose parents 🪁 Without support 🐾 A parentless animal 📄 Lone line
to orphan

to orphan

36 4.9
To make a child lose one or both parents by death
  • verb
  • /ˈɔrfən/
translation icon : dejar huérfano
  • The earthquake orphaned many children who lost their parents in the disaster.
  • orphaned children
  • orphaned young children
  • orphaned by AIDS

They keep saying he's an orphan so it was his bad mood because he was newly orphaned?

Examples

  • Her grandfather, for example, gave his life in Korea, orphaning four young children.

    Academic text (2007)

  • The two brothers were orphaned, and they were left a pool hall as their only inheritance.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • I was orphaned at 15.

    Old Henry (2021)

  • Did they have children that are now orphaned?

    Saw X (2023)

  • And it could leave our child orphaned.

    The Last Duel (2021)

  • AIDS has already orphaned more than 12 million African children.

    Beat the Drum (2003)

  • Grieving parents, orphaned children, and a nation shocked to its very core.

    The Running Man (1987)

  • After a short pause, Hilary said, "How sad for you to be orphaned so very young."

    Fiction book (1996)

  • Cook was born in Connecticut in 1819, but was orphaned and raised by relatives in New Jersey.

    Academic text (2008)

  • For the past couple of summers, I had been hand-raising orphaned and/or injured birds for the local aviary.

    Fiction book (1998)

Compounds

orphan site
  • Specialized
9.9

A place polluted by toxic waste with no person or company responsible for cleaning it

Surface Forms

orphan infinitive
orphaned past
orphaned past participle
orphaning present participle
orphans third person singular

Etymology

Orphan as a verb comes from Greek orphanos 'without parents' and means to make someone 'without parents', as when a child is left parentless after a death.