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Consider this situation: A girl has been lost and her parents are trying to find her. Hence, can I describe this circumstance as the following:

  • The child, who has been lost from her parents, is crying as she is watching thousands of strange people passing by.

Is the bold phrase accurate? If not, what is the best substitute for it? Thanks for any help.

Best regards

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5 Answers 5

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The fix is a tiny one.

The child, who has been lost by her parents, is crying as she is watching thousands of strange people passing by.

I would go further with:

The child, who has been lost by her parents, is crying as she watches thousands of strange people passing by.

Less is more with:

The child, lost by her parents, is crying as she watches thousands of strangers passing by.

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You don't become lost from someone/something, but rather someone loses you. A more natural way to write this sentence is:

"The child, who has been lost by her parents, is crying as she watches thousands of strange people pass by."

Or we can use the phrase separated from.

"The child, who has been separated from her parents, is crying as she watches thousands of strange people pass by."

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As @V0ight points already out losing someone is more the by than the from way. Mostly kids are lost for a few reasons. You can try to specify it a bit more clearly.

Maybe the kid has wandered away from her parents, or maybe the kid has simply been forgotten by her parents.

You can however stay with lost and the kid's perspective, if you write The kid, who has lost sight of her parents, ...

lose sight of

Be no longer able to see:

when night fell, the crew lost sight of the strange monster

-ODO

It's really about what you want to focus on.

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I would like to rephrase it as below please. The child, who has been set apart from her parents, is crying as she is watching thousands of strange people passing by.

: set apart from others Synonyms: isolate, keep apart, sequester, sequestrate Type of: disunite, divide, part, separate force, take, or pull apart.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/set%20apart

Hope it helps. Welcome.

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    -1 "set apart" sounds as if it has been done *intentionally - which is clearly not what "lost" means.
    – TrevorD
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 17:07
  • that phrase doesn't work here because to set apart something is to lay it aside for future use, and is used for inanimate objects. For example, you would set apart a piece of paper after writing it. When it's used in the context of humans, it denotes a person being noted for a quality that others don't share: for example an Olympian is set apart from other professional athletes in that the former is even more skilled and is the best in his field.
    – user180089
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 17:07
  • Let me have a look please.
    – Abhilaaj
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 17:17
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We may say as follows The child, who has been separated or disjointed from her parents, is crying as she is watching thousands of strange people passing by.

"disjointed star see definition of disjointed show adj loose, disconnected" and

Separate, verb (used without object), separated, separating. 8. to part company; withdraw from personal association (often followed by from):

to separate from a church.

Please see http://www.dictionary.com/browse/disjoint?s=t http://www.dictionary.com/browse/separate

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    'separated' is a good choice. But you cannot use "disjointed" in this context. You cannot just browse for a synonym and assume that you can use in instead of the source word, If you do not know the answer, please do not just try to make one up. And what's the relevance of "to separate from a church"? Why is it in large bold by itself?
    – TrevorD
    Commented Jul 23, 2016 at 18:12

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