Father Time is the anthropomorphized depiction of time. He is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, dressed in a robe and carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping device (which represents time's constant one-way movement, and more generally and abstractly, entropy). This image derives from several sources, including the Grim Reaper and Chronos: Greek God of Time.
Around New Year's Eve many editorial cartoons use the convenient trope of Father Time as the personification of the previous year (or "the Old Year") who typically "hands over" the duties of time to the equally allegorical Baby New Year (or "the New Year") or who otherwise characterizes the preceding year.
Read more about Father Time: In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words father and/or time:
“We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless we claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Anxious to publicise and pay our dues
Contracted here, we, Bernard Noel Hughes
And Philip Arthur Larkin, do desire
To requite and to reward those whom we choose;
To thank our friends, before our time expire,
And those whom, if not friends, we yet admire.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)