Fathername/ˈfɑːðə(ɹ)/

• 1

  ChristianityGod, the father of Creation.

• 2

  ChristianityGod the Father, who eternally begets the Son.

• 3

  One's father.

  • I will only do what Father asks.
• 4

  WiccalifestylereligionOne of the triune gods of the Horned God in Wicca, representing a man, younger than the elderly Sage and older than the boyish Master.

  • ...and our Lord as Master, Father, and Sage.
  • In respect to our Lord (God), these are the less known Master, Father, and Sage.

Fathernoun/ˈfɑːðə(ɹ)/

• 1

  ChristianityA title given to priests.

  • Father Thomas was a good priest.
  • Father Smith, the social action director of the archdiocese, and Father William Killian, executive editor of the archdiocesan weekly, went to Brownsville, joined the field workers in picketing, attended several rallies, and marched in an eight-mile “pilgrimage.” They were arrested by local authorities for trespassing on private property and sent back to San Antonio. When Fathers Smith and Killian returned to the valley in early 1967 in defiance of Lucey’s specific orders, Lucey removed Smith as social action director and demoted Killian and several other activist priests for violating protocol.
• 2

  ChristianityOne of the chief ecclesiastical authorities of the first centuries after Christ.

  • the Latin, Greek, or apostolic Fathers
• 3

  A title given to the personification of a force of nature or abstract concept, such as Father Time or Father Frost.

• 4

  historicalA senator of Ancient Rome.

  • Claudius put a stop to these executions, and the Conscript Fathers, repenting, placed Gallienus among the divi , — which was equivalent to the maintenance of his acts.
  • When Romulus had left the earth and had become a god, the Fathers met together and appointed intermediate kings from the senate, to reign in turn each for five days, in the place of the king, till a new king should be chosen.

fathernoun/ˈfɑː.ðə(ɹ)/

• 1

  A male parent, especially of a human; a male who parents a child (which he has sired, adopted, fostered, etc.).

  • My father was a strong influence on me.
  • My friend Tony just became a father.
• 2

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

  • 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,
• 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.

  • Bless you, good father friar!
• 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

  A pioneering figure in a particular field.

  • Albert Einstein is the father of modern physics.
• 7

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

  • 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."
• 8

  Something inanimate that begets.

  • 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,[…]

fatherverb/ˈfɑː.ðə(ɹ)/

• 1

  To be a father to; to sire.

  • Well go too, we'll haue no Baſtards liue, / Eſpecially ſince Charles muſt Father it.
• 2

  To give rise to.

  • Cowards father Cowards & Baſe things Syre Bace;
• 3

  To act as a father; to support and nurture.

  • I good youth, / And rather Father thee, then Maſter thee:
  • What have you learned since writing Wild at Heart that you would now go back and change (if you could) about how you fathered your three boys?
• 4

  To provide with a father.

  • 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.
• 5

  To adopt as one's own.

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