father

My father was a strong influence on me.

The Pꝛouerbes of Solomon: A wiſe ſonne maketh a glad father: but a fooliſh sonne is the heauineſſe of his mother.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Proverbs 10:1:

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.

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:

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.

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

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.

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, archived from the original on 2020-05-17:

Father, dear father
Will you be proud of me?
I wish I could be
Just like you.

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

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.

2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Apollo Cafe, Presidium Commons, Citadel:

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 friend Tony just became a father.

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

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, 1 Kings 2:10:

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,

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Romans 4:16:

A male ancestor more remote than a parent; a progenitor; especially, a first ancestor.

Come, father; you can sit here.

A term of respectful address for an elderly man.

Bless you, good father friar!

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]:

A term of respectful address for a priest.

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.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 29:16:

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.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 45:8:

A person who plays the role of a father in some way.

Albert Einstein is the father of modern physics.

A pioneering figure in a particular field.

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 […]

2012, Zubairu Wai, Epistemologies of African Conflicts: Violence, Evolutionism, and the War in Sierra Leone, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 93:

Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind.

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,[…]

1649, Richard Lovelace, Amyntor's Grove, His Chloris, Arigo, and Gratiana. An Elogie., Thomas Harper, page 88:

In proceeding in this fashion, the fathers assembled at Pisa were following the generally accepted canonistic teaching of the day […]

2003, Francis Oakley, The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church, 1300–1870, →ISBN, pages 37–8:

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.

2009, Peter Chidi Okuma, Empowerment of the Catholic Laity in the Nigerian Political Situation […], →ISBN, page 177:

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

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

(Christianity) A member of a church council.

Three generations of file are usually kept, being the grandfather, father and son files.

2004, Ray Bradley, The Ultimate Computing Glossary for Advanced Level, page 31:

The file from which the father was developed with the transaction files of the appropriate day is the grandfather.

2007, O. Ray Whittington, Patrick R. Delaney, Wiley CPA Exam Review 2008: Auditing and Attestation, page 556:

(computing) The archived older version of a file that immediately precedes the current version, and was itself derived from the grandfather.

it is a wise child that knows his own father

Ireland, Canada, California, Western Pennsylvania, older New York City

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 fatherFrom 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.


father

Well go too, we'll haue no Baſtards liue, / Eſpecially ſince Charles muſt Father it.

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:

Cowards father Cowards & Baſe things Syre Bace;

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:

I good youth, / And rather Father thee, then Maſter thee:

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:

To act as a father; to support and nurture.

Thinke you, I am no ſtronger then my Sex / Being ſo Father'd, and ſo Husbanded?

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:

The relations of the sexes were so loose and vague that children could not be fathered on any particular man.

1906, James George Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, volume 2, page 209:

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

1713, Imitation of Horace, Jonathan Swift, Book I. Ep. VII:

en-verb

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

fathers (present singular third-person)
fathering (participle present)
fathered (participle past)
fathered (past)