Parenting

How to spell parenting

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce parenting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does parenting mean?

1. nounThe activity and skills involved in raising and caring for a child.

Parenting in a sentence

• The library runs a free parenting class for new mothers and fathers.

• Shared parenting after a divorce requires careful planning and patience.

Where does parenting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows out of the noun 'parent', which English took from Old French in the 1400s and which traces back to the Latin parens, parentis, meaning literally 'one who brings forth' or 'one who gives birth'. That Latin noun was formed from the verb parere, 'to bring forth, produce, give birth to', the same root that lurks behind words like 'postpartum' and 'parturition'. For centuries 'parent' stayed almost entirely a noun, and using it as a verb (to act as a parent) only became common in the twentieth century. The gerund 'parenting', describing the whole activity of raising children, is genuinely modern: it spread rapidly from the 1950s onward as a tidy label for child-rearing in books, magazines and social science. The spelling stays simple because the single 't' of 'parent' is never doubled when -ing is added, since the stress falls on the first syllable, not the last.

How the word is built

• parent (one who brings forth offspring)
• -ing (gerund/noun suffix)