father
See also: Father
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle English fader, from Old English fæder, from Proto-West Germanic *fader, from Proto-Germanic *fadēr, from Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr. Doublet of ayr, faeder, padre, pater, and père.
PronunciationEdit
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: fä'thə(r), IPA(key): /ˈfɑːðə(ɹ)/
Audio (RP) (file) - (General American) enPR: fä'thər, IPA(key): /ˈfɑðɚ/
Audio (GA) (file) - (General Australian) enPR: fä'thə, IPA(key): /ˈfɐːðə/
- (Ireland) enPR: fä'thə, IPA(key): /ˈfɒːðɚ/
- (obsolete) enPR: făthər, fāthər, IPA(key): /ˈfæðəɹ/, /ˈfeɪðəɹ/[1][2]
- Homophone: farther (in non-rhotic accents)
- Rhymes: -ɑːðə(ɹ)
- Hyphenation: fa‧ther
NounEdit
father (plural fathers)
- A (generally human) male who begets a child.
- My father was a strong influence on me.
- My friend Tony just became a father.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 10:1:
- The Pꝛouerbes of Solomon: A wiſe ſonne maketh a glad father: but a fooliſh sonne is the heauineſſe of his mother.
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- When this conversation was repeated in detail within the hearing of the young woman in question, and undoubtedly for his benefit, Mr. Trevor threw shame to the winds and scandalized the Misses Brewster then and there by proclaiming his father to have been a country storekeeper.
- 2010 April 7, Cécile Corbel (lyrics), Cécile Corbel and Simon Caby (music), “My First Borrowing”, in 借りぐらし Kari-gurashi [The Borrowers] (CD), Yamaha Music Communications, performed by Cécile Corbel:
- Father, dear father
Will you be proud of me?
I wish I could be
Just like you.
- 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Apollo Cafe, Presidium Commons, Citadel:
- A male ancestor more remote than a parent; a progenitor; especially, a first ancestor.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings 2:10:
- So Dauid ſlept with his fathers, and was buried in the citie of Dauid.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Romans 4:16:
- Therefoꝛe it is of faith, that it might bee by grace; to the ende the pꝛomiſe might be ſure to all the ſeede, not to that onely which is of the Law, but to that alſo which is of the faith of Abꝛaham, who is the father of vs all,
- A term of respectful address for an elderly man.
- Come, father; you can sit here.
- A term of respectful address for a priest.
- c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
- Bless you, good father friar!
- A person who plays the role of a father in some way.
- My brother was a father to me after my parents got divorced.
- The child is father to the man.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 29:16:
- I was a father to the pooꝛe: and the cauſe which I knewe not, I ſearched out.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 45:8:
- So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and loꝛd of all his houſe, and a ruler thꝛoughout all the land of Egypt.
- The founder of a discipline or science.
- Albert Einstein is the father of modern physics.
- Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind.
- 1991, The Nairobi Law Monthly:
- Soon after the announcement of this year's election results, Mereka said that "the father of all battles had just begun." His dispute with Muite goes back to March last year […]
- 2002, Financial Management:
- "If UK GDP slows by 1 per cent, there is the mother and father of all recessions. It was exciting, but very bizarre, working in such an environment."
- 2012, Zubairu Wai, Epistemologies of African Conflicts: Violence, Evolutionism, and the War in Sierra Leone, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 93:
- “The Father of All Battles”
On March 23, 1991, a band of armed insurgents attacked the town of Bomaru […]
- 1991, The Nairobi Law Monthly:
- Something inanimate that begets.
- 1649, Richard Lovelace, Amyntor's Grove, His Chloris, Arigo, and Gratiana. An Elogie.[3], Thomas Harper, page 88:
- But may the Sun and gentle weather, / When you are both growne ripe together, / Load you with fruit, such as your Father / From you with all the joyes doth gather: / And may you when one branch is dead / Graft ſuch another in it's ſtead, […]
- (Christianity) A member of a church council.
- 2003, Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church, 1300–1870, →ISBN, pages 37–8:
- In proceeding in this fashion, the fathers assembled at Pisa were following the generally accepted canonistic teaching of the day […]
- 2009, Peter Chidi Okuma, Empowerment of the Catholic Laity in the Nigerian Political Situation […], →ISBN, page 177:
- On the part of the fathers of the synod, over 50 bishops, from every continent, spoke on different ‘group forms’ of the lay apostolate, whereas about 38 fathers made their own interventions in writing to the General Secretary.
- (computing) The archived older version of a file that immediately precedes the current version, and was itself derived from the grandfather.
- 2004, Ray Bradley, The Ultimate Computing Glossary for Advanced Level (page 31)
- Three generations of file are usually kept, being the grandfather, father and son files.
- 2007, O. Ray Whittington, Patrick R. Delaney, Wiley CPA Exam Review 2008: Auditing and Attestation (page 556)
- The file from which the father was developed with the transaction files of the appropriate day is the grandfather.
- 2004, Ray Bradley, The Ultimate Computing Glossary for Advanced Level (page 31)
SynonymsEdit
- (parent): see Thesaurus:father
- (most significant thing): see mother and granddaddy
AntonymsEdit
HypernymsEdit
- (a male parent): parent
Derived termsEdit
- adoptive father
- baby father
- be gathered to one's fathers
- biological father
- birth father
- birthing father
- city father
- co-father
- co-father-in-law
- conscript father
- Father Christmas
- father figure
- father hunger
- father in law
- father lasher
- father longlegs
- father of chapel
- Father of Lies
- father of the House
- father superior
- Father Time
- father tongue
- father-bother merger
- father-figure
- father-fucker
- father-in-law
- father-out-law
- father-slayer
- father-to-be
- fatherhood
- fatherland
- fatherless
- fatherlike
- fatherliness
- fatherly
- Father's Day
- forefather
- foster father
- founding father
- gestational father
- ghostly father
- God the Father
- godfather
- gold star father
- grandfather
- great-grandfather
- he could be her father
- Heavenly Father
- highfather
- how's your father
- it is a wise child that knows his own father
- like father like son
- like father, like son
- nursing father
- one's father was born before one
- penny-father
- shrift father
- single father
- step-father
- stepfather
- surrogate father
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
VerbEdit
father (third-person singular simple present fathers, present participle fathering, simple past and past participle fathered)
- To be a father to; to sire.
- 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v], page 117, column 2:
- Well go too, we'll haue no Baſtards liue, / Eſpecially ſince Charles muſt Father it.
- (figuratively) To give rise to.
- 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 387, column 1:
- Cowards father Cowards & Baſe things Syre Bace;
- To act as a father; to support and nurture.
- 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 390, column 2:
- I good youth, / And rather Father thee, then Maſter thee:
- To provide with a father.
- 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 116, column 2:
- Thinke you, I am no ſtronger then my Sex / Being ſo Father'd, and ſo Husbanded?
- 1906, James George Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, volume 2, page 209:
- The relations of the sexes were so loose and vague that children could not be fathered on any particular man.
- To adopt as one's own.
- 1713, Jonathan Swift, Imitation of Horace, Book I. Ep. VII.
- Kept company with men of wit / Who often fathered what he writ.
- 1713, Jonathan Swift, Imitation of Horace, Book I. Ep. VII.
TranslationsEdit
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
- ^ Krapp, George Philip (1925) The English Language in America[1], volume II, New York: Century Co. for the Modern Language Association of America, →OCLC, pages 50-51.
- ^ Dobson, E. J. (1957) English pronunciation 1500-1700[2], volume II: Phonology, second edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1968, →OCLC, § 6, page 467.
AnagramsEdit
Middle EnglishEdit
NounEdit
father
- (Late Middle English) Alternative form of fader