sirehood

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

sire +‎ -hood

Noun[edit]

sirehood (uncountable)

  1. The property of being a father.
    • 2003, Peter J. B. Slater, Jay S. Rosenblatt, Charles T. Snowdon, Advances in the Study of Behavior, volume 33, page 125:
      The female signal is thus "honest enough" to give the dominant male a reasonable degree of paternity certainty while leaving other males with a smaller (but greater than zero) probability of sirehood.