father
part of speech
noun (father, fathers); verb (father — to become the father of)
meaning for a pupil
1) A father is a man who has a child; a dad. tree →
2) A father is also a man who takes care of a child as a parent, like a stepfather. tree →
3) Father is a title for some priests. tree →
4) The father of something is the person who started it. tree →
sense in the lessons
maths: a person in the story; often in age problems («3 times as old» means multiply; both get older by the same amount) or giving things; everyday life: family, Father's Day; stories: fathers and children in tales; science: animal fathers like the emperor penguin
examples
- Her father is 40 years old. tree →
- His father gave him $10. tree →
- The father is 3 times as old as his son. tree →
- Father bought 2 pizzas. tree →
- My father takes me to swimming. tree →
- We made cards for Father's Day. tree →
- The penguin father keeps the egg warm. tree →
- His grandfather is his father's father. tree →
- Which was taller, Father or Mother? tree →
note
A person. In age problems «3 times as old» means multiply. Trap: in a few years both father and child get older by the same amount. «Dad» and «daddy» are friendly words for father.
In the corpora
- Paternity leave is time off work for a new father; in Britain it is usually two weeks.
- Wolves live in packs that are usually a family: a mother, a father and their young of different ages.
- Tamarins and marmosets usually have twins, and the father and older brothers and sisters carry the babies most of the time.
- Emperor penguin fathers keep the egg warm on their feet for about two months without eating.
- Female Komodo dragons in British zoos laid eggs that hatched with no father, a rare virgin birth called parthenogenesis.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «father» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.