From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishwaifwaif /weɪf/ noun [countable] 1 THIN PERSONsomeone, especially a child, who is pale and thin and looks as if they do not have a home2 → waifs and strays
Examples from the Corpus
waif• Do I look like a waif?• Louise looks like a waif and has indulged in more booze and cigarettes than she should have.• He also made a special study of the outcasts, the waifs and strays of industrial society the vagrants and the idiots.• All her images of a tiny waif locked in the attic seemed suddenly foolish and fantastic.• Lavant plays a vagrant waif, Binoche a runaway painter.Origin waif (1300-1400) Old North French (adjective), “lost, unclaimed”, from a Scandinavian language 