Word.ws English Dictionary

parentify

parentify verb: to cause (a child) to act as a parent to its own parent or sibling.

Verb

parentify (third-person singular simple present parentifies, present participle parentifying, simple past and past participle parentified)

  1. (intransitive) To cause (a child) to act as a parent to its own parent or sibling.
    Synonyms:
    parentize

Synonyms of parentify

Forms of parentify

third-person singular presentparentifies
present participleparentifying
past participleparentified
pastparentified

Origin of parentify

From parent + -ify.

Questions about parentify

What does parentify mean?
Parentify means to cause (a child) to act as a parent to its own parent or sibling.
What part of speech is parentify?
Parentify is a verb.
What is the past tense of parentify?
The past tense of parentify is parentified.

Words near parentify in the dictionary

  1. parenticide
  2. parenticides
  3. parentification
  4. parentified
  5. parentifies
  6. parentify
  7. parentifying
  8. parenting
  9. parentings
  10. Parentis
  11. parentish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: parentify (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: “parentify.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/parentify. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.