Etimology
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.
noun
father (plural fathers)
A (generally human) male who begets a child.
A male ancestor more remote than a parent; a progenitor; especially, a first ancestor.
A term of respectful address for an elderly man.
A term of respectful address for a priest.
A person who plays the role of a father in some way.
A pioneering figure in a particular field.
Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind.
Something inanimate that begets.
(Christianity) A member of a church council.
(computing) The archived older version of a file that immediately precedes the current version, and was itself derived from the grandfather.
Examples
My father was a strong influence on me.
My friend Tony just became a father.
The Pꝛouerbes of Solomon: A wiſe ſonne maketh a glad father: but a fooliſh sonne is the heauineſſe of his mother.
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.
"Ah, but how beautiful 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."
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.
Father, dear fatherWill you be proud of me?I wish I could beJust like you.
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.
So Dauid ſlept with his fathers, and was buried in the citie of Dauid.
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,
Come, father; you can sit here.
Bless you, good father friar!
My brother was a father to me after my parents got divorced.
The child is father to the man.
I was a father to the pooꝛe: and the cauſe which I knewe not, I ſearched out.
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.
Albert Einstein is the father of modern physics.
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 […]
"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."
“The Father of All Battles”On March 23, 1991, a band of armed insurgents attacked the town of Bomaru […]
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, […]
In proceeding in this fashion, the fathers assembled at Pisa were following the generally accepted canonistic teaching of the day […]
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.
Remember that the fathers of Vatican II had rejected the first draft of the constitution on revelation entirely.
Three generations of file are usually kept, being the grandfather, father and son files.
The file from which the father was developed with the transaction files of the appropriate day is the grandfather.
Related words
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
related terms
Father
Jupiter
paternal
verb
father (third-person singular simple present fathers, present participle fathering, simple past and past participle fathered)
To be a father to; to sire.
(figuratively) To give rise to.
To act as a father; to support and nurture.
To provide with a father.
To adopt as one's own.
Examples
Well go too, we'll haue no Baſtards liue, / Eſpecially ſince Charles muſt Father it.
Cowards father Cowards & Baſe things Syre Bace;
I good youth, / And rather Father thee, then Maſter thee:
Thinke you, I am no ſtronger then my Sex / Being ſo Father'd, and ſo Husbanded?
The relations of the sexes were so loose and vague that children could not be fathered on any particular man.
Kept company with men of wit / Who often fathered what he writ.