lorn

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   literary or archaic: abandoned, bereft, lonely, or forlorn

   The lorn traveler watched the last carriage disappear into the rain.

2. 2
   adj

   literary or archaic: lost, ruined, or doomed

   The poem mourns a lorn cause whose defenders have vanished.

From Middle English lorn, the past participle of lesen ('to lose'), from Old English and ultimately Proto-Germanic *leusan ('to lose'). Once literally meaning 'lost,' it survived in poetic English with emotional senses such as abandoned, bereft, and lonely.

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