paternalistic
paternalistic adjective: the quality of being paternal, i.e. like a father, e.g. characterized by behaving in a benevolent yet intrusive manner towards underlings.
Adjective
paternalistic (comparative more paternalistic, superlative most paternalistic)
- the quality of being paternal, i.e. like a father, e.g. characterized by behaving in a benevolent yet intrusive manner towards underlings
- of, pertaining to, characteristic of or practicing paternalism
- With a scanty supply of laws in Hellenic commonwealths or city states what an immense vista for an Aristotle, of that grand, complex, efficient machinery of law, turning out yearly thousands of laws and taboos for the paternalistic control and alleged welfare of the citizen!1919, Boris Sidis, The Source and Aim of Human Progress
Forms of paternalistic
| comparative | more paternalistic |
|---|---|
| superlative | most paternalistic |
Origin of paternalistic
From paternal + -istic.
Words formed from paternalistic
Questions about paternalistic
- What does paternalistic mean?
- Paternalistic means the quality of being paternal, i.e. like a father, e.g. characterized by behaving in a benevolent yet intrusive manner towards underlings.
- What part of speech is paternalistic?
- Paternalistic is an adjective.
Words near paternalistic in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: paternalistic (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: “paternalistic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paternalistic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.