Translation
orphan
Word origin
From Latin orphanus, itself from Greek orphanos, bereft or fatherless. The Greek belongs to an old word family about being deprived of something, and English orphan came the same way.
- Origin
- Greek
- Root
- orphanos
- English cognates
- orphan
Examples
.
After the war many children were left orphans.
.
The orphan found a new family in the village.
.
She cared for the orphan as though for her own daughter.
One root again, and this one has a decoy. - is a single borrowed root
from Greek orphanos. The or- at the front is not oro,
gold, and there is no suffix -f- in the language to account for the rest. If
you catch yourself parsing this word, stop: it came in whole from Greek by way
of Latin, exactly as English orphan did.
What the root does build is genuinely useful. Orfa is orphaned, so orfa is an orphaned child and orfa is not - for the building you want
o, an orphanage, with the -- place suffix. o is specifically
a girl. And i is the verb the newspapers need: to orphan somebody, which
English can only manage as a passive.
A useful distinction the English word blurs. in careful Esperanto
covers a child who has lost one parent as well as one who has lost both, which
matches the older English usage and the way most of the world's languages
handle it. If you need to be exact, say so: . Being an only child is a different matter entirely, and
the word for that is solinfano, built on sola.
Where this fits
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orfo: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "orfo" (orphan): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 51.