Concept

Orphan

Overview

An orphan is a child whose parents have died, are unknown, or have permanently abandoned them. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edition, defines the term: "One deprived by death of father or mother, or (usu.) of both; a fatherless or motherless child." In some languages, such as Swedish, the term is "parentless" and more ambiguous about whether the parents are dead, unknown or absconded, but typically refers to a child or younger adult.

In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents due to death is called an orphan. When referring to animals, only the mother's condition is usually relevant (i.e., if the female parent has gone, the offspring is an orphan, regardless of the father's condition).

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Orphan is discussed.

Further, the guardian of the orphan who is careless or dishonest may be fined on the information of any of the citizens in a fourfold penalty, half to go to the orphan and half to the prosecutor of the suit. When the orphan is of age, if he thinks that he has been ill-used, his guardian may be brought to trial by him within five years, and the penalty shall be fixed by the court. Or if the magistrate has neglected…
Plato, Laws
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The Archon also has the care of orphans and wards of state, and of women who, on the death of their husbands, declare themselves to be with child; and he has power to inflict a fine on those who offend against the persons under his charge, or to bring the case before the law-courts. He also leases the houses of orphans and wards of state until they reach the age of fourteen, and takes mortgages on them; and if the…
Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution
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Such, for example, is the relation "brother or sister." If A is a brother or sister of B, then B is a brother or sister of A. Such again is any kind of similarity, say similarity of colour. Any kind of dissimilarity is also of this kind: if the colour of A is unlike the colour of B, then the colour of B is unlike the colour of A. Relations of this sort are called _symmetrical_. Thus a relation is symmetrical if…
Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy
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But the person of the Son is not another thing from the Father's essence. Therefore the Son is not from the Father's essence. Obj. 4: Further, every creature is from nothing. But in Scripture the Son is called a creature; for it is said (Ecclus. 24:5), in the person of the Wisdom begotten,"I came out of the mouth of the Most High, the first-born before all creatures": and further on (Ecclus. 24:14) it is said as…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
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Scripture expositors must supply these latter. Prophesying, then, is the source of all doctrine and exhortation. "He that giveth, let him do it with liberality." 24. The mention here made of giving has reference to the fund contributed into a common treasury, in charge of servants and officers, for distribution among teachers, prophets, widows, orphans and the poor generally, as before stated. This was according to…
Martin Luther, Epistle Sermons, Vol. 2
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Philosophers who discussed Orphan

Bertrand Russell

Related ideas

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Part of Bertrand Russell.

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