The Collaborative International Dictionary
Orphanhood \Or"phan*hood\, n. The state or condition of being an orphan; orphanage.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The state of being an orphan. 2 The losing of both parents through death.
WordNet
n. the condition of being a child without living parents; "his early orphanage shaped his character as an adult" [syn: orphanage]
Usage examples of "orphanhood".
She had, even by that early age, a history of considerable talent and considerable mental instability, and to be thrown into orphanhood at the inevitably tumultuous age of puberty was a shock she apparently never completely overcame.
Miss Brown cast a dark look at her own father, apparently thinking orphanhood had its advantages.
Cora, to comfort me in my orphanhood, took me to the Harpies to see my father again.
My sense of her forlornness, of her most hapless orphanhood, was intensified by the implacable hate with which Mrs.
It was then that through the dusk of the first night of my orphanhood broke the moan of my suppressed sobbing.
But the hands I stretched out met with only the empty darkness, and the bitterness of my orphanhood rent my heart.