English

Noun

parent ‎(plural parents)

1. One of the two persons from whom one is immediately biologically descended; a mother or father. [from 15th c.]

   My twin sister says she loves our parents, but honestly, I dislike them.

   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, First Folio 1623, I.2:

     my trust / Like a good parent, did beget of him / A falsehood in it's contrarie, as great / As my trust was, which had indeede no limit, / A confidence sans bound.

   • 1611, Bible (KJV), John 9:19–20:

     And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind [...].

   • 2005, Siobhan O'Neill, The Guardian, 24 Aug 2005:

     The NHS is naturally pro-immunisation, reassuring parents that their babies can easily cope with these jabs.

2. A surrogate mother
3. A third person who has provided DNA samples in a IVF procedure in order to alter faulty genetic material
4. A person who acts as a parent in rearing a child; a step-parent or adoptive parent.
   • 2013 June 7, Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalisation is about taxes too”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 19:

     It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.

5. (obsolete) A relative. [15th-18th c.]
6. The source or origin of something. [from 16th c.]
   • 1785, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia:

     Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.

7. (biology) An organism from which a plant or animal is immediately biologically descended. [from 17th c.]
8. (attributive) Sponsor, supporter, owner, protector. ^[1]
   • 1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick, chapter 5:

     The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.

   1. A parent company. [from 20th c.]
      • 2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68:

        The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them […] is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.

9. (computing) The object from which a child or derived object is descended; a node superior to another node. [from 20th c.]

Synonyms

• (person from whom one is descended): progenitor
• (computing: object from which a child is descended): mother

Antonyms

• (person from whom one is descended): child, offspring
• (computing: object from which a child is descended): child

Hyponyms

• (person from whom one is descended): father, mother

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

parent ‎(third-person singular simple present parents, present participle parenting, simple past and past participle parented)

1. To act as parent, to raise or rear.

Derived terms

• parenting

Translations

References

1. ↑ J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner (prepared by), The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (Claredon Press, Oxford 1991 [1989], ISBN 0-19-861258-3), page 1274

See also

• foster

Anagrams

• enrapt, entrap, panter, trepan

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin parēns.

Noun

parent m ‎(plural parents, feminine parenta)

1. relative (someone in the same family)

Related terms

• parentiu

French

Etymology

From Old French parent, from Latin parēns, parentem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa.ʁɑ̃/

Noun

parent m ‎(plural parents, feminine parente)

1. relative, relation, family member
   • 1862, Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, I.1.iv:

     Une de ses parentes éloignées, madame la comtesse de Lô, laissait rarement échapper une occasion d'énumérer en sa présence ce qu'elle appelait «les espérances» de ses trois fils.

     One of his distant relatives, the countess of Lô, rarely missed an opportunity to list, in his presence, what she called her "hopes" for her three sons.

2. (in the plural) ancestors
3. (in the plural) parent

Derived terms

Adjective

parent m ‎(feminine singular parente, masculine plural parents, feminine plural parentes)

1. related
2. similar

Derived terms

Verb

parent

1. third-person plural present indicative of parer
2. third-person plural present subjunctive of parer

Anagrams

• arpent, râpent

Latin

Verb

parent

1. third-person plural present active subjunctive of parō
2. third-person plural present active indicative of pareō

Middle French

Noun

parent m (plural parens)

1. parent

Norman

Alternative forms

• pathent (Jersey)

Etymology

From Old French parent, from Latin parēns, parentem, from pariō, parere ‎(“bring forth, give birth to, produce”).

Noun

parent m ‎(plural parents)

1. (Guernsey) parent

Hyponyms

• mère
• père

Old French

Etymology

From Latin parēns, parentem.

Noun

parent m ‎(oblique plural parenz or parentz, nominative singular parenz or parentz, nominative plural parent)

1. parent

Derived terms

• parenté
• parentage

Descendants

• English: parent
• French: parent