Waif
Encyclopedia
A waif is a living creature removed, by hardship, loss or other helpless circumstance, from his original surroundings. The most common usage of the word is to designate a homeless, forsaken or orphan
Orphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...

ed child, or someone whose appearance is evocative of the same.

As such, the term is similar to a ragamuffin
Ragamuffin
The Ragamuffin is a breed of domestic cat that first made its appearance in 1994. Ragamuffins are notable for their friendly personalities and thick, rabbitlike fur.-General description:...

 or street urchin
Street children
A street child is a child who lives on the streets of a city, deprived of family care and protection. Most children on the streets are between the ages of about 5 and 17 years old.Street children live in junk boxes, parks or on the street itself...

, although the main distinction is volitional: a runaway youth
Runaway youth
A runaway is a minor or a person under an arbitrary age, depending upon the local jurisdiction, who has left the home of his or her parent or legal guardian without permission, or has been thrown out by his or her parent and is considered by the local authorities to lack the capacity to live under...

 might live on the streets, but would not properly be called a waif as the departure from one's home was an exercise of free will. Likewise, a person fleeing their home for purposes of safety (as in response to political oppression or natural disaster), is typically considered not a waif but a refugee
Refugee
A refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...

.

Literature

Orphaned children, left to fend for themselves, are common as literary protagonists, especially in children
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

's and fantasy literature
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...

. The characters Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...

 1847 novel Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...

and Pip in Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

' 1861 novel Great Expectations
Great Expectations
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....

are waifs. Dickens, it may be noted, has been called "the Master of Waif Literature." Bret Harte
Bret Harte
Francis Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.- Life and career :...

's 1890 novel A Waif of the Plains, set against the backdrop of the Oregon Trail in the 1850s, is another example. The children in A Series of Unfortunate Events
A Series of Unfortunate Events
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of children's novels by Lemony Snicket which follows the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire after their parents' death in an arsonous house fire...

are usually waifs, in between their unsuccessful stints in the care of various relatives. In modern adult fantasy writing, it could be argued that Kvothe of Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick Rothfuss
Patrick James Rothfuss is an American fantasy writer and college lecturer. He is the author of the projected three-volume series The Kingkiller Chronicle.- Biography :...

's The Kingkiller Chronicle
The Kingkiller Chronicle
The Kingkiller Chronicle is a fantasy trilogy by Patrick Rothfuss , telling the biography of "Kvothe" , an adventurer, arcanist and famous musician...

(The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Wind is a fantasy novel by Patrick Rothfuss, the first book in a series called The Kingkiller Chronicle. It was published in 2007 by DAW books with two possible hardcovers: one features the face of the Green Man with the title letters in silver and the other shows the figure of...

and The Wise Man's Fear
The Wise Man's Fear
The Wise Man's Fear is a fantasy book by Patrick Rothfuss released March 1, 2011. It is the second volume in the ongoing trilogy The Kingkiller Chronicle.-Plot:...

) was a waif, and the stories include many flashback elements - as they are of Kvothe's life told by Kvothe - to the time when he indeed was a waif.

Literary waifs are frequently depicted with a frail appearance, although such physical aspects are not inherent in the term. Such evocations may reflect the endemic malnutrition of the street urchin
Street children
A street child is a child who lives on the streets of a city, deprived of family care and protection. Most children on the streets are between the ages of about 5 and 17 years old.Street children live in junk boxes, parks or on the street itself...

.

Chicago's Mercy Home for Boys and Girls
Mercy Home for Boys and Girls
Mercy Home for Boys & Girls is an American privately-funded childcare and residential home for abused, homeless and neglected children. For more than 122 years, Mercy Home has provided a safe haven for children from broken homes and violent, turbulent backgrounds.Founded in 1887 in Chicago by Fr...

, a long-term residential home for troubled young men and women from the streets and abusive homes, has published The Waif's Messenger for more than 100 years.

Nautical

In nautical terms, a waif is any survivor of a shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....

 compelled to make land upon a foreign shore. In this sense it is roughly synonymous with castaway
Castaway
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a deserted island, either to evade their captors or the world in general. Alternatively, a person or item can be cast away, meaning rejected or discarded...

, although the latter term is generally associated with isolation; a waif (in the nautical sense) usually indicates a survivor of a marine disaster who has fallen into the care and/or custody of others.

"Some seven years ago...there appeared the remarkable saga of Manjiro, the shipwrecked Japanese waif who was rescued and brought to the United States by a Yankee whaling captain."


The noun waif has a secondary nautical meaning, referring to any message that has been received via flag signals. However, in that context the etymology is most likely divergent, springing instead from the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 veif, a back-and-forth movement.

Music

References to waifs in music are sometimes self-deprecating
Self-deprecation
Self-deprecation, or Self-depreciation, is the act of belittling or undervaluing oneself. It can be used in humor and tension release.-In comedy:...

, as in the name of the Australian folk-rock band The Waifs
The Waifs
The Waifs are an Australian folk rock band formed in 1992 by Josh Cunningham , and sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson...

, or Tracy Bonham
Tracy Bonham
Tracy Bonham is an American alternative rock musician best known for her 1996 single "Mother Mother".Raised in Eugene, Oregon, Bonham is a classically-trained violinist and pianist...

's song "I'm Not a Waif".

Many other songs use the word "waif" to romanticize street children
Street children
A street child is a child who lives on the streets of a city, deprived of family care and protection. Most children on the streets are between the ages of about 5 and 17 years old.Street children live in junk boxes, parks or on the street itself...

 and runaways
Runaway youth
A runaway is a minor or a person under an arbitrary age, depending upon the local jurisdiction, who has left the home of his or her parent or legal guardian without permission, or has been thrown out by his or her parent and is considered by the local authorities to lack the capacity to live under...

, as in the Marc Almond
Marc Almond
Marc Almond is an English singer-songwriter and musician, who originally found fame as half of the seminal synthpop/New Wave duo Soft Cell...

 song "Waifs and Strays", or the Steely Dan
Steely Dan
Steely Dan is an American rock band; its core members are Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The band's popularity peaked in the late 1970s, with the release of seven albums blending elements of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and pop...

 song "Janie Runaway", which describes the title character as being the "wonderwaif of Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park
Gramercy Park is a small, fenced-in private park in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park is at the core of both the neighborhood referred to as either Gramercy or Gramercy Park and the Gramercy Park Historic District...

".

Botany

In botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, a "waif" is an unusual species found in the wild that is alien and either a) is unsuccessful at reproduction without human intervention, or b) only persists a few generations and disappears. Such a plant never gets "naturalized" in the wild. "Waif flora" also refers to plant species which occur on oceanic islands due to chance long-distance dispersion of seeds.

Fashion

In fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...

 and related popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

, the term "waif" is commonly used to describe an incredibly thin person, usually a woman.

"The waif look" was used in the 1960s to describe thin, large-eyed model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

s such as Twiggy
Twiggy
Lesley Lawson née Hornby known as Twiggy is an English model, actress, and singer. In the early-1960s she became a prominent British teenage model of swinging sixties London with others such as Penelope Tree....

 and Dorothee Bis. The "gamine
Gamine
Gamine is a French word, the feminine form of gamin, originally meaning urchin, waif or playful, naughty child.The word was used in English from about the mid-19th century , but, in the 20th century, came to be applied in its more modern sense of a slim, often boyish, wide-eyed young woman who...

" look of the 1950s, associated with actresses like Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...

 (who starved as a teenager during the Dutch famine of 1944
Dutch famine of 1944
The Dutch famine of 1944, known as the Hongerwinter in Dutch, was a famine that took place in the German-occupied part of the Netherlands, especially in the densely populated western provinces above the great rivers, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. A German blockade...

), Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...

 and Jean Seberg
Jean Seberg
Jean Dorothy Seberg was an American actress. She starred in 37 films in Hollywood and in France, including Breathless , the musical Paint Your Wagon and the disaster film Airport ....

, was, to some extent, a precursor.

The term "waif" was seemingly ubiquitous in the 1990s, with heroin chic
Heroin chic
Heroin chic was a look popularized in mid-1990s fashion and characterized by pale skin, dark circles underneath the eyes, and jutting bones.The look, which promoted emaciated features and androgyny, was an alternative that stood in direct contradiction to the "healthy" and vibrant look of models...

 fashion and models like Kate Moss
Kate Moss
Kate Moss is an English model. Moss is known for her waifish figure and popularising the heroin chic look in the 1990s. She is also known for her controversial private life, high profile relationships, party lifestyle, and drug use. Moss changed the look of modelling and started a global debate on...

 and Jaime King
Jaime King
Jaime King is an American actress and model. In her modeling career and early film roles, she used the names Jamie King and James King, which was a childhood nickname given to King by her parents, because her agency already represented another Jaime — the older, then more famous model Jaime...

 on the runways and in advertisements. Actresses like Ally McBeal
Ally McBeal
Ally McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...

star Calista Flockhart
Calista Flockhart
Calista Kay Flockhart is an American actress who is primarily recognized for her work in television. She is best known for playing the title character in the Fox comedy-drama series Ally McBeal for which she won a Golden Globe Award...

, Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder
Winona Ryder is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder's first significant role came in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition...

, recently the British actress Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Knightley born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham...

 and singer Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...

 have all been pinned with the term.

Although the heroin chic look has gone out of fashion, it still holds some popularity in Hollywood. For example, Wonderbra
Wonderbra
The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1935, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses Nadler, founder and majority owner of the Canadian Lady Corset Company, licensed the...

 model Eva Herzigova
Eva Herzigová
Eva Herzigová is a Czech model and actress.-Early life and career:Herzigová was born in Litvínov, Czechoslovakia . She began her modeling career after winning a modeling beauty contest in Prague in 1989, at the age of sixteen. After arriving in Paris, her popularity increased...

 was criticized over her waif-like figure. Daily Mirror columnist Sue Carroll wrote:
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