Word.ws English Dictionary

orphaness

orphaness noun: a female orphan.

Noun

orphaness (plural orphanesses)

  1. (rare) A female orphan.
    • Jimmy is twenty-one—grand-niece—ex-fathered by me, ex-mothered by Martha—orphaness to this day—orphaness to this day—get it? Very well.1906, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “The Admiral” (chapter 2), in The Refuge of the Derelicts; republished in Fables of Man (The Mark Twain Papers; 7), Oakland, CA: University of...
    • Yaya is a poor orphaness, a sort of charity-case, and she definitely needs help.1996, Femi Ojo-Ade, “Of Color, Class and Sex: the Novels of Michèle Lacrosil” (chapter VI), in Being Black, Being Human: More Essays on Black Culture, 1 edition, Obafemi Awolowo University Press...

Forms of orphaness

pluralorphanesses

Origin of orphaness

From orphan + -ess (feminine suffix).

Questions about orphaness

What does orphaness mean?
Orphaness means a female orphan.
What part of speech is orphaness?
Orphaness is a noun.
What is the plural of orphaness?
The plural of orphaness is orphanesses.

Words near orphaness in the dictionary

  1. orphaned works
  2. orphanedst
  3. orphaner
  4. orphaners
  5. orphanes
  6. orphaness
  7. orphanest
  8. orphanet
  9. orphaneth
  10. orphanhood
  11. orphanhoods

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: orphaness (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “orphaness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/orphaness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.