orphan

Writers call unfinished stories and story snippets orphans. Just like real orphans, these unfortunate memelets have so much potential, but have nobody around to nourish them, nobody who can help them mature into full-fledged literature.

In word processing, an orphan is a sentence from a paragraph that starts on the bottom previous page. Most word processors have an option to prevent orphans.

orphan n.

[Unix] A process whose parent has died; one inherited by init(1). Compare zombie.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Or"phan (?), n. [L. orphanus, Gr. , akin to L. orbus. Cf. Orb a blank window.]

A child bereaved of both father and mother; sometimes, also, a child who has but one parent living.

Orphans' court Law, a court in some of the States of the Union, having jurisdiction over the estates and persons of orphans or other wards.

Bouvier.

© Webster 1913.

Or"phan, a.

Bereaved of parents, or (sometimes) of one parent.

© Webster 1913.

Or"phan, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Orphaned (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Orphaning.]

To cause to become an orphan; to deprive of parents.

Young.

© Webster 1913.