Crossword clues for waif
waif
- Jo in Dickens' "Bleak House," e.g
- Homeless one
- Homeless kid
- Forsaken child
- Dickensian child, often
- Cosette in "Les Miserables," for one
- Child of the streets
- Young stray
- Twiggy, for one
- Thin-as-Twiggy model
- Street person
- Scrawny model
- Runway model, often
- Runway frequenter
- One without a home
- Oliver Twist, for example
- Neglected or orphaned child
- Model persona
- Many a Dickensian child
- Many a Dickens child
- Lost child
- Little Orphan Annie, e.g
- Kate Moss's persona in the 1990s
- Homeless youngster
- Homeless tot
- Homeless (very thin) child
- Extremely thin female fashion model, like Kate Moss in the '90s
- Dog without a collar, e.g
- Dickensian character
- Descriptor for many a supermodel
- Cosette, e.g., in "Les Misérables"
- "Oliver Twist" type
- "Look" embodied by Kate Moss
- Street urchin
- Gamin
- Stray animal
- Homeless child — thin person
- Stray calf
- Oliver Twist, e.g.
- Ragamuffin
- Cosette, e.g., in "Les MisГ©rables"
- Twiggy's look in '60s fashion
- A homeless child especially one forsaken or orphaned
- Urchin
- Orphan of the storm
- Oliver, for one
- Abandoned tot
- Lost sheep
- Stray bit
- Unclaimed piece of property
- Outsiders in Wichita providing for neglected child
- Slender model debuts in Western action in film
- Neglected child
- Homeless child would appear in front, first of all
- Small child
- Oliver Twist, for one
- Oliver Twist, e.g
- Very thin model, e.g
- Abandoned child
- Abandoned infant
- Very thin fashion model, like Kate Moss
- The ___ look (stick-skinny fashion trend)
- Orphaned child
- Little Orphan Annie or Oliver Twist, e.g
- Kate Moss, e.g
- Kate Moss type
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Waif \Waif\, n. [OF. waif, gaif, as adj., lost, unclaimed, chose gaive a waif, LL. wayfium, res vaivae; of Scand. origin. See Waive.]
(Eng. Law.) Goods found of which the owner is not known; originally, such goods as a pursued thief threw away to prevent being apprehended, which belonged to the king unless the owner made pursuit of the felon, took him, and brought him to justice.
--Blackstone.Hence, anything found, or without an owner; that which comes along, as it were, by chance. ``Rolling in his mind old waifs of rhyme.''
--Tennyson.-
A wanderer; a castaway; a stray; a homeless child.
A waif Desirous to return, and not received.
--Cowper.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., "unclaimed property, flotsam, stray animal," from Anglo-French waif (13c., Old French guaif) "ownerless property, something lost;" as an adjective, "not claimed, outcast, abandoned," probably from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse veif "waving thing, flag," from Proto-Germanic *waif-, from PIE *weip- "to turn, vacillate, tremble ecstatically" (see vibrate). Compare Medieval Latin waivium "thing thrown away by a thief in flight." A Scottish/northern English parallel form was wavenger (late 15c.).\n
\nMeaning "person (especially a child) without home or friends" first attested 1784, from legal phrase waif and stray (1620s), from the adjective in the sense "lost, strayed, homeless." Neglected children being uncommonly thin, the word tended toward this sense. Connotations of "fashionable, small, slender woman" began 1991 with application to childishly slim supermodels such as Kate Moss.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context obsolete English) Goods found of which the owner is not known; originally, such goods as a pursued thief threw away to prevent being apprehended, which belonged to the king unless the owner made pursuit of the felon, took him, and brought him to justice. 2 (context obsolete English) Hence, anything found, or without an owner; that which comes along, as it were, by chance. 3 A wanderer; a castaway; a stray; a homeless child. 4 (cx botany of a plant outside its native range English) A plant that has been introduced but is not persistently naturalized.
WordNet
n. a homeless child especially one forsaken or orphaned; "street children beg or steal in order to survive" [syn: street child]
Wikipedia
WAIF (88.3 FM) is a community radio station licensed to Cincinnati, Ohio.
A waif usually refers to an orphan or a homeless young person. Waif or WAIF may also refer to:
- The Waifs, an Australian folk rock band
- WAIF, a community radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio
- World Aircraft Information Files, a weekly partwork magazine published in 218 issues
- The Waif, a character in the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire
Usage examples of "waif".
The same pity Jordan had felt for the cheerful little waif who had saved his life and looked at him with huge, adoring eyes.
The two large-headed fatherless waifs staring at me from the corner suggested another similarity between the two women.
I let her and everyone in the place understand that Miss Gemmell is no stray waif without influence to back her.
Although he cannot undo what he has done and write himself straight, she breaks free from those solipsized, warped sections of the memoir which aimed to suppress her as the nymphet waif.
Heath appraised the image professionally, having readopted his colonel persona for the benefit of their rescued waif.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Cease fooling on weak waifs who love and wed But as the unweeting Urger may bestead!
Much benefit might accrue to educators and moralists if they could know the details of the curriculum of reclamation through which Ranse put his waif during the month that he spent in the San Gabriel camp.
He had come so far from that frightened waif stumbling out of burned Dundalis.
I commend it to those of the Anglo-Gallic school, who love the domestically horrible, and delight in unsunned sorrows: but, I throw not any one topic away as a waif, for the casual passer-by to pick up on the highway.
Was the girl he had found in the alley not Sibylla but just another tattered waif lost to poverty?
She was taller than Amanda by half a head, but seemed waif like even with her height and the bulge in her belly.
Heaven alone knew if these waifs were acquainted with the world of make-believe.
A Nigerian student, and now two waifs - what else would the night throw at her?
The vesper had been said, yet here and there A wrinkled beldam, or mourner veiled, Or burly burgher on the cold floor knelt, And still the organist, with wandering hands, Drew from the keys mysterious melodies, And filled the church with flying waifs of song, That with ethereal beauty moved the soul To a more tender prayer and gentler faith Than choral anthems and the solemn mass.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Cease fooling on weak waifs who love and wed But as the unweeting Urger may bestead!