Word definition: parent

Etimology


From Middle English parent, borrowed from Anglo-Norman parent, Middle French parent, from Latin parentem, accusative of parēns (“parent”), present participle of pariō (“I breed, bring forth”).

noun


parent (plural parents)

One of the two persons from whom one is immediately biologically descended; a mother or father. [from 15th c.]

A surrogate parent.

A third person who has provided DNA samples in an IVF procedure in order to alter faulty genetic material.

A person who acts as a parent in rearing a child; a step-parent or adoptive parent.

(obsolete) A relative. [15th–18th c.]

The source or origin of something. [from 16th c.]

(biology) An organism from which a plant or animal is immediately biologically descended. [from 17th c.]

(attributive) Sponsor, supporter, owner, protector.

(computing) The object from which a child or derived object is descended; a node superior to another node. [from 20th c.]

(physics) The nuclide that decays into a daughter nuclide.

Examples


After both her parents were killed in a forest fire, Sonia was adopted by her aunt and uncle.

my trust / Like a good parent, did beget of him / A falsehood in it's contrarie, as great / As my trust was, which had indeede no limit, / A confidence sans bound.

And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind […]

The NHS is naturally pro-immunisation, reassuring parents that their babies can easily cope with these jabs.

Synonyms: genitor, progenitor

Antonyms: child, offspring

Hyponyms: father, mother

It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.

Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.

Indolence and unalimentary food are the parents of this disease; but to neither are Indians accustomed.

The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.

The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them […] is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.

Synonym: mother

Antonym: child

Related words


related terms

antepartum

parous

-parous

post-partum

verb


parent (third-person singular simple present parents, present participle parenting, simple past and past participle parented)

To act as parent, to raise or rear.

(programming) To provide a parent object for one or more other objects, which become the children.

Examples


Synonyms: raise, rear

However, even with money and caregivers, the child is left without a parent and most likely without a plan for their emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being. A time will come when you will no longer be able to parent your child, period.

Data provided by Wiktionary