Word.ws English Dictionary

father-slayer

father-slayer noun: one who kills or murders one's father; a patricide.

Noun

father-slayer (plural father-slayers)

  1. (uncommon) One who kills or murders one's father; a patricide
    • Christy Mahon was the factor which destroyed the equilibrium of the lives of the Flaugherty's and Villagers, because he was an alleged fatherslayer.1952, William Daniel Simpson, The Creation of the Role of Christy in John M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, and an Analysis of the Acting Problems Involved
    • In these aspects the relationship seems almost to follow an archetype of the relations between immigrant Jewish fathers and their talented sons in modern times. All such sons have been, in a sense, father-slayers.1993, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable, page 63

Examples of father-slayer in a sentence

  • He will post Calandryll outlaw, claiming him a father-slayer.”2010, Angus Wells, Dark Magic: The Godwars:
  • The magus called Beast's Bane, who drew down sirithar and so could not be permitted to live, and who was a bastard and a warrior and a father-slayer, was also, impossibly, Stelian.2014, Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters:
  • “But a father-slayer will hardly stick at brother-killing; and he will share nothing with you . . . not unless he loves you well.2015, C. J. Cherryh, The Complete Morgaine:

Forms of father-slayer

pluralfather-slayers
alternative formfatherslayer
alternative formfather slayer

Origin of father-slayer

From Middle English fadyr slaer, fadur sleer, equivalent to father + slayer.

Questions about father-slayer

What does father-slayer mean?
Father-slayer means one who kills or murders one's father; a patricide.
How do you use father-slayer in a sentence?
He will post Calandryll outlaw, claiming him a father-slayer.”
What part of speech is father-slayer?
Father-slayer is a noun.
What is the plural of father-slayer?
The plural of father-slayer is father-slayers.

Words near father-slayer in the dictionary

  1. father-fucker
  2. father-fuckers
  3. father-in-law
  4. father-in-laws
  5. father-out-law
  6. father-slayer
  7. father-slayers
  8. father-to-be
  9. fathercraft
  10. fatherdom
  11. fathered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: father-slayer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “father-slayer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/father-slayer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.