Definition of "orphan" in English

noun

1. A person, especially a minor, both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died.

2. A person, especially a minor, whose parents have permanently abandoned them.

3. A young animal with no mother.

4. (figuratively) Anything that is unsupported, as by its source, provider or caretaker, by reason of the supporter's demise or decision to abandon.

5. (typography) A single line of type, beginning a paragraph, at the bottom of a column or page.

6. (computing) Any unreferenced object.

adjective

1. Deprived of parents (also orphaned).

   • She is an orphan child.

2. (by extension, figuratively) Remaining after the removal of some form of support.

   • With its government funding curtailed, the gun registry became an orphan program.

verb

1. (transitive) To deprive of parents (used almost exclusively in the passive).

   • What do you do when you come across two orphaned polar bear cubs?

2. (transitive, computing) To make unavailable, as by removing the last remaining pointer or reference to.

   • When you removed that image tag, you orphaned the resized icon.
   • Removing categories orphans pages from the main category tree.