Paternal

How to spell paternal

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce paternal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does paternal mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to, characteristic of, or befitting a father.
2. adjectiveInherited from or related through one's father.

Paternal in a sentence

• He offered the trainee some paternal advice about managing money.

• Her paternal grandmother emigrated from Ireland in the 1920s.

• The older manager took a paternal interest in every new recruit.

• The genealogist traced his paternal line back four centuries.

Where does paternal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin pater, meaning simply 'father', which gave rise to the adjective paternus, 'of a father' or 'fatherly'. Late Latin extended this into paternalis, carrying the sense of belonging to or characteristic of a father. English picked the word up in the fifteenth century, most likely by way of Old French, to describe both fatherly affection and kinship traced through the father. The same pater root is hidden in a large family of everyday words, including 'paternity', 'patron', 'patriarch', and even 'pattern', and it is the close cousin of the Greek pater that gives us 'patriot'. Remembering that the heart of the word is plain Latin pater, with no second 't', helps keep the spelling steady.

How the word is built

• pater- (from Latin pater: father)
• -al (adjective suffix)