Talk:father

Definition 5

Definition 5 looks incorrect. It should be “he was LIKE a father to me”, not “he was a father to me”. also, this way this definition stops being valid, thoughts?

Your change would invalidate the definition, yes, but it's correct as written. It's like saying "we are all brothers in this religion". Not literal brothers. A different sense of word. Equinox ◑ 03:53, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Etymology: Oldest record of pater

Please correct me if I am wrong but we have a fact here which it should be in the etymology section. The fact is that the oldest attested record for father is the Mycenaean Greek pa-te' πατήρ (pater). Why then does a hypothesis ("Proto-Germanic *fader, Proto-Indo-European *p@ter") takes the place of the fact? Kassios 12:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Because Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European is not a hypothesis but a solidly established theory (essentially a fact, just like dinosaurs), and Greek is not a direct ancestor of English father (nor of Latin pater), so if anything, Mycenaean Greek is the oldest attestation of the Indo-European etymon going back to Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr. Also, the Vedic attestation (even if indirect) at least rivals the Greek one in age. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:33, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

RfD discussion for possessive form (father’s)

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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Any reason why this particular possessive is kept? --Jackofclubs 13:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - this use of the apostrophe is confusing for us johnny-foreigners. Παρατηρητής 14:38, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

No reason to keep that a johnny-foreigner-me can see. --Duncan 14:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Delete; neither the possessive nor the contraction is a special case. Equinox 15:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Delete and modify adjacent words' {{rank}} calls to refer to father{{!}}father's rather than to father's. (That will work, right?)—msh210℠ 19:03, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Probable Delete, but can anyone explain why we accept simple plurals (e.g. fathers) but not simple possessives? SemperBlotto 08:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

See the pertinent section of the CFI, as well as the explanation therefor. The technical argument is that the possessive “word chunks” (<’s> usually, but <’> after some terminal esses (usually sounded as [z])) are not suffixes but rather enclitics, added to mark the possessive of an entire noun phrase, not just a single word in it, and so, therefore, there is no “word” to speak of when we speak of the coöccurrence of father + ’s as ^ʀfather’s. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:06, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I would say because a plural is a "word in itself" (lexeme or something?) and may be irregular (children, cacti) or non-existent (arguably rice), whereas the possessive suffix is pretty much standard and can be tacked onto anything. For me it's a similar argument to that against the French s'en, m'a, etc. we had a while ago (though few enough agreed with me on that!). Equinox 11:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Deleted. DAVilla 07:13, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

British English audio file

Can someone upload a clearer version of the British English audio file? Tharthan (talk) 19:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC) BUMP Tharthan (talk) 19:24, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Clarification needed

Why TH if in ME is D?--Manfariel (talk) 01:23, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Middle English /d/ changed to /ð/ (the medial sound in father) when before unstressed -er (Middle English /ər/, Modern English /ə~ɚ/). One can also see this development in other words like weather (Middle English weder), hither (Middle English hider), etc. — This unsigned comment was added by Hazarasp (talk • contribs) at 07:33, 19 July 2019 (UTC).

RFV discussion: April 2021

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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father

Rfv-sense "A senator of Ancient Rome.".__Gamren (talk) 19:08, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I can find plenty of citations, but they all capitalize the word (except for one mention that uses the lower case to translate the Latin):

1877, Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, A Book of Bristol Sonnets, page 7:

The eighty Fathers (senators) sat silent in their robes of office in the senate house;

1879, Titus Livius, The fifth, sixth and seventh books of Livy's History of Rome, a tr., with intr., summary and notes by a first-classman, page 174:

Go to Rome to the Senate: the Fathers will decide whether you have deserved more punishment [for what you did] before, or forgiveness now.

1886, Victor Duruy, John Pentland Mahaffy, History of Rome, page 275:

Claudius put a stop to these executions, and the Conscript Fathers, repenting, placed Gallienus among the divi , — which was equivalent to the maintenance of his acts.

1886, Wilhelm Ihne, Early Rome, page 37:

When Romulus had left the earth and had become a god, the Fathers met together and appointed intermediate kings from the senate, to reign in turn each for five days, in the place of the king, till a new king should be chosen.

[

1886, Wilhelm Ihne, Early Rome, page 104:

This authority was lodged in the senate, a body of men consisting of all or the most influential heads of families, and therefore appropriately called 'fathers' (patres).

]

1890, Robert Franklin Pennell, Ancient Rome from the Earliest Times Down to 476 A.D., page 9:

His duties were to command the army, to perform certain sacrifices (as high priest), and to preside over the assembly of the Fathers of the families, which was called the Senate, i. e. an assembly of old men (Senex).

I suggest moving it to Father. Kiwima (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

We have this sense as a plurale tantum at patres. Maybe the English is likewise? Cites 2, 3, 4 at least seem to use it as a collective noun for the institution, rather than for the members of that institution. Sense 3 supports conscript father, but with different capitalization.__Gamren (talk) 23:43, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

The cites all use the plural mainly as an artifact of my search technique. Some of those sources also used the singular in other places. Kiwima (talk) 00:28, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Ah, neat. If they also use the singular then yes, move to the capitalized form (assuming no-one else finds lowercase). :) And someone interested in Latin might look into whether patres is really plural-only or can also be found in the singular... - -sche (discuss) 02:26, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

RFV-resolved. Moved to Father. Kiwima (talk) 20:10, 24 April 2021 (UTC)