father

fa|ther¹ W1S1 [ˈfa:ðə US -ər] n

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

1¦(parent)¦

2¦(priest)¦

3 fathers

4¦(god)¦

5 the father of something

6 from father to son

7 like father like son

8 a bit of how's your father

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

[: Old English; Origin: fAder]

1.) ¦(PARENT)¦

a male parent

▪ Ask your father to help you.

▪ Andrew was very excited about becoming a father.

▪ He's been like a father to me.

a father of two/three/four etc

(=a man with two, three etc children)

▪ The driver, a father of four, escaped uninjured.

▪ Steve recently became the proud father of a 7lb 12oz baby girl.

2.) ¦(PRIEST)¦

Father

a priest, especially in the Roman Catholic church

▪ I have sinned, Father.

▪ Father Devlin

→↑Holy Father

3.) fathers [plural]

people related to you who lived a long time ago

= ↑ancestors

▪ Our fathers were exiles from their native land.

→↑forefather

4.) ¦(GOD)¦

Father

a way of talking to or talking about God, used in the Christian religion

▪ our Heavenly Father

5.) the father of sth

the man who was responsible for starting something

▪ Freud is the father of psychoanalysis.

6.) from father to son

if property or skill passes from father to son, children receive it or learn it from their parents

▪ This is a district where old crafts are handed down from father to son.

7.) like father like son

used to say that a boy behaves like his father, especially when this behaviour is bad

8.) a bit of how's your father

BrE informal the act of having sex - used humorously

→↑city fathers, ↑founding father

father ²

father² v [T]

1.) to become the father of a child by making a woman ↑pregnant

▪ Hodgkins fathered seven children.

2.) formal to start an important new idea or system

▪ Bevan fathered the concept of the National Health Service.

father on [father sth on sb] phr v

formal to claim that someone is responsible for something when they are not

▪ A collection of Irish stories was fathered on him.