Word.ws English Dictionary

fathered

fathered is the simple past and past participle of father.

Meaning of father

Verb

father (third-person singular simple present fathers, present participle fathering, simple past and past participle fathered)

  1. To be a father to; to sire.
    • Well go too, we'll haue no Baſtards liue, / Eſpecially ſince Charles muſt Father it.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  2. (figuratively) To give rise to.
    • Cowards father Cowards & Baſe things Syre Bace;1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  3. To act as a father; to support and nurture.
    • I good youth, / And rather Father thee, then Maſter thee:1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  4. To provide with a father.
    • Thinke you, I am no ſtronger then my Sex / Being ſo Father'd, and ſo Husbanded?1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  5. To adopt as one's own.
    • Kept company with men of wit / Who often fathered what he writ.1713, Imitation of Horace, Jonathan Swift, Book I. Ep. VII

See all 23 meanings of father

Forms of fathered

comparativemore fathered
superlativemost fathered

Words formed from fathered

Questions about fathered

What is fathered the simple past and past participle of?
Fathered is the simple past and past participle of father.

Words near fathered in the dictionary

  1. father-slayer
  2. father-slayers
  3. father-to-be
  4. fathercraft
  5. fatherdom
  6. fathered
  7. Fatheree
  8. Fatherees
  9. fatherer
  10. fatherers
  11. fatherese

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fathered (page history and authors); father (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: “fathered.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fathered. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.