- a child who has lost both parents through death, or, less commonly, one parent.
- a young animal that has been deserted by or has lost its mother.
- a person or thing that is without protective affiliation, sponsorship, etc.: The committee is an orphan of the previous administration.
- Printing.
- (especially in word processing) the first line of a paragraph when it appears alone at the bottom of a page.
- widow (def. 3b).
- bereft of parents.
- of or for orphans: an orphan home.
- not authorized, supported, or funded; not part of a system; isolated; abandoned: an orphan research project.
- lacking a commercial sponsor, an employer, etc.: orphan workers.
- to deprive of parents or a parent through death: He was orphaned at the age of four.
- to deprive of commercial sponsorship, an employer, etc.: The recession has orphaned many experienced workers.
- a child, one or (more commonly) both of whose parents are dead
- (as modifier)
- the first line of a paragraph separated from the rest of the paragraph by occurring at the foot of a page
- to deprive of one or both parents
