Term for a parent whose kids died (reverse of "orphan," basically)

I'm not generally a big language-constructor, but for a while now, it's struck me as a touch strange that English doesn't have a term for a parent who has lost kids. I'm wondering what would be good terminology.

One approach that occurred to me is to just reverse "orphan" into "nahpro," but that struck me as pretty lame and juvenile when I gave it some consideration.

I suppose another approach would just be to ask: can I borrow the word from another language that already has a word? Is there a term in Japanese or French or Cherokee or something for this?

Also, would there be different "degrees" of being a parent-of-dead-kids (I'll provisionally say nahpro again, even though I'm pretty certain that won't be a final term)? For instance, a parent who lost at least one child but has at least child remaining would be a partial nahpro, while a parent who lost all children would be a total nahpro? Or would it only be for parents who lost all of their children? (Just as a child must lose both parents to be an orphan, I suppose.)

edited 18th Jan '12 3:25:34 PM by Maklodes

I don't think that there is a term for this... at all, honestly.

There could be in other languages, but if there is, I have no clue.

Hmm... went to wiktionary. Orphan's apparently straight (more or less) from Greek, so no easy particles to invert.

What about Reavan - from bereaved?

Edit: I guess the reason that there isn't a word for this is that only recently have we expected all children to make it to adult-hood. In the past loosing a child wasn't unexpected. And dark as it is, you can have more kids, parents are harder to replace.

Maybe a word to do with losing one's heirs? Heirlost or something.

edited 18th Jan '12 3:55:24 PM by Luthen

The Chinese character for parents who lost their children at an old age is 独.

Kithlorn? Dunno how Anglo you want it, though. Childelorn would also work, I guess, if be a bit long.

edited 18th Jan '12 5:23:21 PM by Euodiachloris

Nahpro. Just like how the reverse of badwrong or badong is gnodab.

edited 18th Jan '12 5:37:16 PM by MajorTom

Childless? Unparented?

Kid-forsaken?

edited 18th Jan '12 5:50:50 PM by Teraus

Hmm...

Wife -> widower

Child -> chidower?

edited 18th Jan '12 5:52:37 PM by Teraus

I laughed @ "Chidower"

@Yuri Strike

How do you pronounce that?

edited 18th Jan '12 6:12:14 PM by stripesthezebra

I'd just use the adjective "bereaved," but ehh.

dú

Du is a more general term of "alone" or something similar. Parents is "qin" (pronounced chin), so chindu would be parents alone. I would have to ask people here in China if there is such a word.

My suggestion would be "perspoiled" from the Latin "puer spoliari" which means "robbed of child", according to Google Translate.

Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. I decided to look an online version of the ol' Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English dictionary, and I found the term "asisu" or "asizu," meaning childless. Could work. (Technically, of course, being childless and having kids who later die isn't the same, but still...)

I'm pretty sure that there was a term for this in old English, but I can't remember it for the life of me. I think it was a compound word, with "kin" as the prefix.

Also on the Latin side of things, a progenitor is someone or something from which others descend. Perhaps an ingenitor (or, if you want to mix Greek and Latin, agenitor) is someone from whom nothing descends.

I think Agenitor has the best sound to it, in terms of world building and fiction usage. It's nice in that it can easily be shortened to agen, which has some interesting connotations: "Age", for one, as well as agen sounding a bit like orphan, so easy for readers to remember.

As for it actually being adopted into the english language, probably not. But I could defintiely see me using this word where being a bereaved parent is plot-pointy enough to need a separate term for it.