father

Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to: navigation, search
Wikipedia has articles on:

Wikipedia

See also Father

Contents

English [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Middle English fader, from Old English fæder, from Proto-Germanic *fadēr (compare West Frisian faar, North Frisian faaðer, Low German Fader, Dutch vader, German Vater, Danish fader), from Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr (compare Irish athair, Tocharian A pācar, B pācer, Persian پدر (pedar), Lithuanian patinas 'male animal'), akin to Latin pater, akin to Ancient Greek πατήρ (patēr), akin to Sankskrit पितृ (pitṛ, father).

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

father (plural fathers)

  1. A male who sires (and often raises) a child.
    My father was a strong influence on me.
  2. A male donator of sperm which resulted in conception or fertilisation
  3. A term of respectful address for an elderly man.
    Come, father; you can sit here.
  4. A term of respectful address for a priest.
  5. 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.
  6. The founder of a discipline or science.
    Albert Einstein is the father of modern physics.

Synonyms [edit]

Antonyms [edit]

Hypernyms [edit]

Derived terms [edit]

Related terms [edit]

Translations [edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Verb [edit]

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

  1. To be a father to; to sire.
  2. (figuratively) To give rise to.
  3. To act as a father; to support and nurture.

Translations [edit]

See also [edit]

Statistics [edit]

Anagrams [edit]