orphanage

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a residential institution that houses and cares for children without parents or guardians

   The charity raised enough money to repair the orphanage.

2. 2
   noun

   rare: the state or condition of being an orphan

   His early orphanage shaped the course of his adult life.

Formed from orphan + -age and recorded in English from the sixteenth century. The suffix first marked the state of being an orphan and then, by association, the institution where orphans were housed and cared for.

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