Orphan
['ɔːf(ə)n] or ['ɔrfn]
Definition
(noun.) a young animal without a mother.
(noun.) the first line of a paragraph that is set as the last line of a page or column.
(noun.) a child who has lost both parents.
(noun.) someone or something who lacks support or care or supervision.
(verb.) deprive of parents.
Inputed by Giles--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) A child bereaved of both father and mother; sometimes, also, a child who has but one parent living.
(a.) Bereaved of parents, or (sometimes) of one parent.
(v. t.) To cause to become an orphan; to deprive of parents.
Editor: Nat
Definition
n. a child bereft of father or mother or of both.—adj. bereft of parents.—v.t. to bereave of parents.—ns. Or′phanage the state of being an orphan: a house for orphans; Or′phan-asy′lum; Or′phanhood Or′phanism; Orphanot′rophy the supporting of orphans.
Edited by Bridget
Unserious Contents or Definition
Condoling with orphans in a dream, means that the unhappy cares of others will touch your sympathies and cause you to sacrifice much personal enjoyment. If the orphans be related to you, new duties will come into your life, causing estrangement from friends ant from some person held above mere friendly liking.
Checked by Hillel
Unserious Contents or Definition
n. A living person whom death has deprived of the power of filial ingratitude—a privation appealing with a particular eloquence to all that is sympathetic in human nature. When young the orphan is commonly sent to an asylum where by careful cultivation of its rudimentary sense of locality it is taught to know its place. It is then instructed in the arts of dependence and servitude and eventually turned loose to prey upon the world as a bootblack or scullery maid.
Typist: Toni
Examples
- Mr and Mrs Boffin, sitting side by side, with Fashion withdrawn to an immeasurable distance, fell to discussing how they could best find their orphan. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- The only person I know who exactly answers your description, and for whom as a poor deserted orphan it would be a charity to provide, is in Paris. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
- Are you an orphan? Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- Go you to England, Lionel; return to sweet Idris and dearest Adrian; return, and let my orphan girl be as a child of your own in your house. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- I am an orphan. Fergus Hume. The Island of Fantasy.
- The condition of her orphan children was peculiarly desolate. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
- In this young sportsman, distinguished by a crisply curling auburn head and a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- I suppose you are an orphan: are not either your father or your mother dead? Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- Now she was alone, an orphan, and they, strangely, had gone away from her, and vanished from the face of the earth. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- Except that we are both orphans, we are in every respect as unlike each other as possible. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- He and Jo keep us merry, for we get pretty blue sometimes, and feel like orphans, with you so far away. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
- Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
- They were both orphans and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had never met before that day. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- Parents boldly represented themselves as dead, and brought their orphans with them. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Orphans, in the fullest sense of the term, we were poorest among the poor, and despised among the unhonoured. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an institution for educating orphans. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
Typed by Eugenia