Father

How to spell father

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce father

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does father mean?

1. nounA man in relation to his child or children.
2. verbTo be the male parent of a child, or to originate something.
3. nounA title used for a priest, especially in the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Father in a sentence

• noun

  Her father taught her how to drive on quiet country lanes.

• verb

  He went on to father three children before he turned thirty.

• noun

  The local father visited the hospital ward every Sunday morning.

• noun

  My father retired last spring after forty years at the factory.

• verb

  The engineer is credited with helping to father the modern jet engine.

• noun

  A young father was assigned to the parish church last spring.

Where does father come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Father descends from the Old English fæder, meaning a male parent, and it belongs to one of the deepest and most stable word families in the language. It traces back through Proto-Germanic fader to the Proto-Indo-European root pəter, the same ancient ancestor that gave Latin pater, Greek pater, and Sanskrit pitar, all meaning father. That shared root is why so many learned English words about fathers and fatherhood, such as paternal, patriot, and patron, look nothing like father itself; they came in later through Latin and French while father stayed in its native Germanic dress. The original p sound shifted to f in the Germanic branch under a regular sound change, and the old d softened into the th heard today. The spelling keeps the th and the unstressed -er ending, which is the small trap, since the word is so familiar that few adults pause over it.

How the word is built

• fath- (from Old English fæder: male parent)
• -er (agent/kinship noun ending)