father

A (generally human) male who begets a child.

“My father was a strong influence on me.”

“My friend Tony just became a father.”

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

A term of respectful address for an elderly man.

“Come, father; you can sit here.”

A term of respectful address for a priest.

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.”

The founder of a discipline or science.

“Albert Einstein is the father of modern physics.”

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

Something inanimate that begets.

christianityA member of a church council.

computingThe archived older version of a file that immediately precedes the current version, and was itself derived from the grandfather.

‘Father’ is a term of address for priests in some churches (especially the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Catholic Church); ‘Padre’ is frequently used in the militaryperson

(Christianity) any of about 70 theologians in the period from the 2nd to the 7th century whose writing established and confirmed official church doctrine; in the Roman Catholic Church some were later declared saints and became Doctor of the Church; the best known Latin Church Fathers are Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Jerome; those who wrote in Greek include Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostomperson

A male parent (also used as a term of address to your father)person

“his father was born in Atlanta”

A person who holds an important or distinguished position in some organizationperson

“the tennis fathers ruled in her favor”

“the city fathers endorsed the proposal”

To be a father to; to sire.

figurativelyTo give rise to.

To act as a father; to support and nurture.

To provide with a father.

To adopt as one's own.

Make (offspring) by reproductionbody

“Abraham begot Isaac”

“John fathered four daughters”