Word.ws English Dictionary

unfathering

unfathering is the present participle and gerund of unfather.

Meaning of unfather

Verb

unfather (third-person singular simple present unfathers, present participle unfathering, simple past and past participle unfathered)

  1. To cause someone to become less of a father.
    • A son no son, unfathers me. Earth, sky and deep, rise, come, be father for me: ascend before him into the day, to cover him from all his light, and your annihilation fall on him!1978, Plays and Players - Issue 1; Issue 26, page 46
  2. To cause someone to be fatherless.
    • Some of these feelings, in all their confusion, press into the flamboyant statement with which he unfathers Cordelia at 1.1.116: The barbarous Scythian Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved, As thou my sometime...1979, “CR. The Centennial Review - Volume 23”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), number 358

See all 3 meanings of unfather

Questions about unfathering

What is unfathering the present participle and gerund of?
Unfathering is the present participle and gerund of unfather.

Words near unfathering in the dictionary

  1. unfatal
  2. unfated
  3. unfateful
  4. unfather
  5. unfathered
  6. unfathering
  7. unfatherlike
  8. unfatherliness
  9. unfatherly
  10. unfathers
  11. unfathom

Source and license

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