A father (or dad) is defined as a male parent or Individual progenitor of human offspring. The adjective "paternal" refers to a father and comparatively to "maternal" for a mother. The verb "to father" means to procreate or to sire a child from which also derives the gerund "fathering". Fathers determine the gender of their child through a sperm cell which either contains an X chromosome (female), or Y chromosome (male).
Read more about Father: Etymology, Relationship With Children, Determination of Parenthood, History of Fatherhood, Father–offspring Conflict, Categories, Non-human Fatherhood
Famous quotes containing the word father:
“As we try to change, we will discover within us a fierce struggle between our loyalty to that battle-scarred victim of his own childhood, our father, and the father we want to be. We must meet our childhood father at close range: get to know him, learn to forgive him, and somehow, go beyond him.”
—Augustus Y. Napier (20th century)
“Bastidides, on the contrary, who both talks and writes of nothing
save copulation,
Has become the father of twins,
But he accomplished this feat at some cost;
He had to be four times cuckold.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)