father

See also: Father

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *peh₂-?

Proto-Indo-European *-tḗr?

Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr

Proto-Germanic *fadēr

Proto-West Germanic *fader

Old English fæder

Middle English fader

English father

From Middle English fader, from Old English fæder, from Proto-West Germanic *fader, from Proto-Germanic *fadēr, from Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr, possibly from *peh₂- + *-tḗr. Doublet of ayr, faeder, padre, pater, and père.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: fä'thə(r), IPA^(key): /ˈfɑːðə(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Received Pronunciation):

    (file)

• (General American) enPR: fä'thər, IPA^(key): /ˈfɑðɚ/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (General Australian) enPR: fä'thə, IPA^(key): /ˈfɐːðə/
• (Ireland, Canada, California, Western Pennsylvania, older New York City) enPR: fä'thər, IPA^(key): /ˈfɒːðɚ/
• (India) enPR: fä'thə(r) IPA^(key): /ˈfɑːd̪ə(r)/
• (Geordie, else obsolete) enPR: făthə(r) IPA^(key): /ˈfæðə(ɹ)/
• (obsolete) enPR: fāthə(r), IPA^(key): /ˈfeɪðəɹ/
• Homophone: farther (most non-rhotic accents)
• Hyphenation: fa‧ther
• Rhymes: -ɑːðə(ɹ)

The development of the /ɑː/ vowel (outside of those accents which also have it in rather, lather) is irregular and has not been conclusively explained.

Noun

father (plural fathers)

1. A male parent, especially of a human; a male who parents a child (which he has sired, adopted, fostered, taken as his own, etc.).

   My father was a strong influence on me.

   • 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.

   • 1905, E. M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread , chapter 7:

     "Ah, but how beautiful (my baby boy) is! And he is mine, mine for ever. Even if he hates me he will be mine. He cannot help it, he is made out of me; I am his father."

   • 1980 August 1 [1980 May 1], Ching-kuo Chiang, “President Chiang Ching-kuo continues his period of mourning and finds that visits to countryside and people give him renewed strength”, in Taiwan Today‎^[3], archived from the original on 17 May 2020:

     My personal success or failure is insignificant; the rise or fall of the nation is my responsibility and must not be shirked. Upon introspection, I feel I am firmer than ever in confidence that the Communists will be defeated. These are feelings which will comfort Father's soul in Heaven.

   • 2010 April 7, “My First Borrowing”, in Cécile Corbel (lyrics), Cécile Corbel and Simon Caby (music), 借りぐらし Kari-gurashi (CD), performed by Cécile Corbel, Yamaha Music Communications:

     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:

     Shepard: The bartender over there?
     Liara: The matriarch hired by the asari government to track my movements?
     Shepard: She's your father.
     Liara: I know.

2. A male who has sired a baby; this person in relation to his child or children.

   My friend Tony just became a father.

3. 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,

4. A term of respectful address for an elderly man.

   Come, father; you can sit here.

5. 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!

6. 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.

7. A pioneering figure in a particular field.

   Albert Einstein is the father of modern physics.

8. 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 […]

9. Something inanimate that begets.
   • 1649, Richard Lovelace, Amyntor's Grove, His Chloris, Arigo, and Gratiana. An Elogie.‎^[4], 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, […]

10. (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.

    • 2014, Ronald D. Witherup, The Word of God at Vatican II: Exploring Dei Verbum, →ISBN, page 31:

      Remember that the fathers of Vatican II had rejected the first draft of the constitution on revelation entirely.

11. (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.

Synonyms

• (parent): see Thesaurus:father
• (most significant thing): see mother and granddaddy

Antonyms

• (with regards to gender) mother
• (with regards to ancestry) son, daughter, child

Hypernyms

• (a male parent): parent

Derived terms

• adoptive father
• All-Father
• allofather
• babyfather
• baby father
• be gathered to one's fathers
• biofather
• birthfather
• birth father
• birthing father
• city father
• co-father
• co-father-in-law
• conscript father
• elderfather
• eldfather
• father-bother merger
• Father Christmas
• father confessor
• fathercraft
• father-daughter day
• fatherdom
• fatherese
• father-figure
• father figure
• fatherfucker
• father-fucker
• fatherhood
• father hunger
• father-in-law
• father in law
• fatherkin
• fatherkins
• fatherland
• father lasher
• fatherless
• fatherlike
• fatherline
• fatherliness
• fatherling
• father longlegs
• fatherly
• fatherness
• father of chapel
• Father of Lies
• father of the House
• father of the nation
• father-out-law
• Father's Day
• fathership
• father-slayer
• father superior
• Father Time
• father-to-be
• father tongue
• forefather
• forthfather
• foster father
• founding father
• from father to son
• gestational father
• ghostly father
• godfather
• God the Father
• gold star father
• grandfather
• great-grandfather
• Heavenly Father
• highfather
• housefather
• how's your father
• it is a wise child that knows his own father
• like father like son
• like father, like son
• lorefather
• merfather
• motherfather
• nonfather
• nursing father
• one's father was born before one
• penny-father
• shrift father
• shriftfather
• single father
• stepfather
• step-father
• surrogate father
• unfather
• wolf father
• you kiss your father with that mouth

 

Related terms

• Father
• Jupiter
• paternal

Translations

See father/translations § Noun.

Verb

father (third-person singular simple present fathers, present participle fathering, simple past and past participle fathered)

1. 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.

2. (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;

3. 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:

4. 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.

5. To adopt as one's own.
   • 1713, Imitation of Horace, Jonathan Swift, Book I. Ep. VII:

     Kept company with men of wit / Who often fathered what he writ.

Derived terms

• fatherer

Translations

See father/translations § Verb.

See also

• beget
• grandpa
• pater
• paternal
• sire

Anagrams

• Hafter, afther, trefah, hafter, fareth

Middle English

Noun

father

1. (Late Middle English) Alternative form of fader

Scots

Noun

father

1. Alternative form of faither

References

• “father, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, retrieved 23 May 2024, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.