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orphan off

C1 neutral separable transitive
In simple words

To leave something on its own without a parent company or group to take care of it.

Literal meaning: To make something an orphan — leaving it without a 'parent' to support it.

Meanings

1 C1 idiomatic neutral

(Business/tech) To separate a product, project, or system from its parent company or support structure, leaving it without adequate care or maintenance.

"The company orphaned off several legacy software products when it restructured last year."

Grammar: separable
2 C1 neutral

To remove or isolate a component, feature, or piece of content so it no longer has a connection to the main system or structure.

"When the web migration went wrong, dozens of pages were orphaned off from the main navigation."

Grammar: separable
Usage notes

Used in business and technology contexts. An 'orphaned' product or codebase has no active maintainer. The phrase is relatively rare and more common in tech and corporate jargon.

Commonly used with

project codebase product department subsidiary software

Forms

Base
orphan off
I/you/we/they
3rd person
orphans off
he/she/it
Past simple
orphaned off
yesterday
Past participle
orphaned off
have + pp
-ing form
orphaning off
continuous

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