Thomas Benjamin Kennington in the context of Society of Artists of Great Britain

An orphan is a child whose parents have died, are unknown, or have permanently abandoned them. It can also refer to a child who has lost only one parent, as the Hebrew translation, for example, is "fatherless". 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).