Lorn and forlorn are synonyms that can both mean "desolate" or "forsaken." The similarity in form and meaning of the two words is hardly a coincidence. Lorn comes down to us from loren, the Middle English past participle of the verb lesen ("to lose"), itself a descendent of the Old English lēosan. Similarly, forlorn comes from the Middle English forloren, a descendent of Old English verb forlēosan, which also means "to lose." The "for-" in forlorn is a no longer productive prefix meaning, among other things, "completely," "excessively," or "to exhaustion." Nowadays, forlorn is considerably more common than "lorn." "Lorn" does, however, appear as the second element in the compound lovelorn ("bereft of love or of a lover").
Examples of lorn in a Sentence
lorn beyond all description, the widow struggled to cope with her crushing grief
