| Definitions | | orphan |
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noun
- A person, especially a minor, both or (rarely) one of whose parents have died.
- A child without living parents.
- A young animal with no mother.
- (typography) A single line of type, beginning a paragraph, at the bottom of a column or page.
- (computing) Any unreferenced abstract object.
verb
- To deprive of parents (used almost exclusively in the passive)
- What do you do when you come across two orphaned polar bear cubs?
- (computing) To dereference or unlink the last remaining pointer to any object.
- When you removed that image tag, you orphaned the resized icon.
- Removing categories orphans pages from the main category tree.
adjective Also orphaned
- Deprived of parents.
- She is an child.
- Intended for orphans.
- She made a generous contribution to the fund.
- (context, sometimes figurative) Of, pertaining to, or resembling the nature of an orphan.
- With its government funding curtailed, the gun registry became an program.
Etymology: From Ancient Greek (polytonic, ) (orfanos) "without parents, fatherless".
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Full Definition of orphan
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