To my knowledge,
There is no single word that describes a "person who has lost a child."
We have "widow" and "widower" for a person whose spouse had died. We have "orphan" for a child whose parent or parents have died. Source
According to the quora question, the closest word is in Arabic: ثَكْلَى (thakla) which translates as "bereaved mother."
Though bereaved does not adequately describe 'loss of child' as it's definition is:
[to] be deprived of a loved one through a profound absence, especially due to the loved one's death.
My questions are:
- If there is a word, what is it?
- If there is not a word, what word would Shakespeare have made up to convey the idea?
Best Answer
There are a number of related, now-obsolete terms that Shakespeare might have used, all related to the Latin orbus meaning bereavement. These include most notably1
Neither of these is an exact parallel for terms like widow or orphan, however. Interestingly, the latter of these shares an Indo-European root with orbus. Perhaps Shakespeare could have coined a parallel term orban for parents bereaved of their child(ren).
Alternatively, some compound term might work; perhaps something like orbe- mother for a bereaved mother.2
1 Definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary: OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2017.
2 Other possibilities, but these are pure invention: orbant or orphent, combining orb or orphan and parent; orbither, combining orb/orbity with mother/father.
Unfortunately, many possible options are problematic for modern English-speakers, due to the similarity to the unrelated words orb and orbit. One possible solution would be to stick closer to the Latin, for example mater orba or orba mater. A question on the Latin SE might get more plausible suggestions along these lines.