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| or·phan [ áwrfən ] |
noun (plural or·phans) |
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| Definition: |
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1. child without parents: a child whose parents are both dead or who has been abandoned by his or her parents, especially a child not adopted by another family
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2. animal without mother: a young animal whose mother is dead or has abandoned it
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3. printing stranded first line: an opening line of a paragraph that is also the last line on a page, cut off from the rest of the paragraph by the page break.
See also widown (sense 3)
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transitive verb (past and past participle or·phaned, present participle or·phan·ing, 3rd person present singular or·phans) |
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| Definition: |
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deprive somebody of parents: to make somebody an orphan
  a young boy orphaned by the war
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adjective U.S. |
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1. medicine affecting very few people: describes a rare medical condition that affects only a small number of people and for which it is not commercially viable to develop drugs or therapies
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2. business not commercially viable: describes a product that is not developed or marketed, often because of its perceived limited commercial potential
orphan technologies
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| [14th century. Via late Latin< Greek orphanos "orphaned"] |
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| or·phan·hood noun |
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