HOW TO PRONOUNCE
father
/ˈfɑ.ðəɹ/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:47
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What does father mean?
noun
- A male parent, especially of a human; a male who parents a child (which he has sired, adopted, fostered, etc.).
- A male ancestor more remote than a parent; a progenitor; especially, a first ancestor.
- A term of respectful address for an elderly man.
More meanings (20)
noun
- 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.
- A member of a church council.
- The archived older version of a file that immediately precedes the current version, and was itself derived from the grandfather.
- A title given to priests.
- One of the chief ecclesiastical authorities of the first centuries after Christ.
- A title given to the personification of a force of nature or abstract concept, such as Father Time or Father Frost.
- (historical) A senator of Ancient Rome.
verb
- 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.
proper noun
- God, the father of Creation.
- God the Father, who eternally begets the Son.
- One's father.
- One of the triune gods of the Horned God in Wicca, representing a man, younger than the elderly Sage and older than the boyish Master.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/ˈfɑ.ðəɹ/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
Secretly Wendy sympathised with them a little, but she was far too loyal a housewife to listen to any complaints against father.
And they have sought to take away the life of my father, insomuch that they have driven him out of the land.
More book examples (3)
Wherefore he fled from what he deemed his father’s house and in his flight he encountered and unwillingly slew his father Laius.
“Gracious heavenly Father--that’s the way the ministers say it in church, so I suppose it’s all right in private prayer, isn’t it?”
“My mother was an Ape, and of course she couldn’t tell me much about it. I never knew who my father was.”