From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishorphanor‧phan1 /ˈɔːfən $ ˈɔːr-/ ●○○ noun [countable] SSCa child whose parents are both dead The war has left thousands of children as orphans.orphan girl/boy/child a poor little orphan girl
Examples from the Corpus
orphan• He is the unloved schoolboy son of an unhappy marriage; she is an orphan.• Richard was an orphan, adopted at nine months.• Dr Barnardo founded homes for orphans in the late nineteenth century.• Four orphans vow to be a family, but come to break their promises.• Sheikhas were always looking for homeless orphans to take under their wing.• They are not just servants, they are like my own family: I call them my orphans.• Pepino was a ten-year-old orphan. His parents had been killed in the war.• Fiona Grogan, 17, portrayed orphan Sophie with the right quality of childlike credibility without patronising children.• This orphan grew up to be a soldier.orphan girl/boy/child• In the case of orphan children the position is relatively clear: a child without parents needs some one to care for it.• It may well be that the better education of orphan girls was a particular feature of the experiment.• They Survey the huddled women briefly, then Stare at the orphan girls.• Jane, the orphan girl, was chosen to go.• The children's home is sending us one of their orphan boys.• When she dies-and it will be soon-she will leave behind three orphaned children.• Due to some unexplained back story, Royer-Collard has been keeping a young orphan girl locked away at a nunnery.orphanorphan2 verb → be orphaned→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
orphan• I remember the night Kip was orphaned.• But what if they were obliged to seek that elusive spring for the good of those they'd orphaned and anguished?• They had been orphaned and were so desperate for work that they auditioned while still mourning.• Philip Leapor may therefore have been orphaned at the age of eight.• They began with a small rented house, its first occupants a handful of people, including children orphaned by the war.• When she dies-and it will be soon-she will leave behind three orphaned children.• Cyril had been stranded, orphaned, in adulthood, in the land of the grown-up.• The first to come were two boys orphaned in the war in Kampuchea.Origin orphan1 (1300-1400) Late Latin orphanus, from Greek orphanos 