In the case of the attestation in Ancren² 167.19 (var.), the variant MS has orphanine, with the the ‘ani’ expuncted and replaced by a different hand in the margin with ‘eli’.

The forms orphanine and orpheline both come from the same Latin root, orphaninus (literally, ‘of or like an orphan’). Whereas both forms also appeared in English, only the latter has persisted in Modern French. Therefore, despite their shared etymology, they have been treated as separate articles.