[f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To be or become the father of; to beget.
1483. Cath. Angl., 120. To Fadyr, genitare.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. 285.
| Heere thre hundred winters shal raigne knight Hector his ofspring | |
| By Mars fiery father’d twins til the Queene Ilia gender. |
1591. F. Sparry, trans. Cattan’s Geomancie, 81. If the childe be right fathered.
1605. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iii. I., The Vocation, 996.
| Ismael indeed doth live (the Lord replies) | |
| And lives, to father mighty Progenies. |
1611. Shaks., Cymb., IV. ii. 26.
| Cowards father Cowards, & Base things Syre Bace; | |
| Nature hath Meale, and Bran; Contempt, and Grace. |
1877. S. Lanier, Poems, Florida Sunday, 103.
| The great bird Purpose bears me twixt her wings, | |
| And I am one with all the kinsmen things | |
| That e’er my Father fathered. |
1884. Tennyson, Becket, III. iii. 132. Had I fathered him I had given him more of the rod than the sceptre.
b. fig. To originate, bring into existence; to be the author of (a doctrine, statement, etc.).
1548. Gest, Pr. Masse, D iij/1. The true meanyng of them who fathered the Canon.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 91. When some grave personage fathereth a lie.
1842. Tennyson, Love & Duty, 7.
| Shall Error in the round of time | |
| Still father Truth? |
1850. Kingsley, Alt. Locke, vii. As wild Icarias … as ever were fathered by a red Republic.
2. To appear or pass as, or acknowledge oneself, the father of; ‟ to adopt.
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), xxxi. 142. On þis wise may þai fader anoþer mannez childe.
1589. Warner, Alb. Eng., XXX. (1612), 148. Who so the Childe shall git … Vulcan … shall father it.
1678. Dryden, The True Widow, Prologue, 31.
| For where the punk is common, he’s a sot, | |
| Who needs will father what the parish got. |
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 213. I would father no brats that were not of my own getting.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 8. The charge of trying to cheat his daughters out of their inheritance by fathering a supposititious child.
fig. 1737. Pope, Hor. Epist., II. ii. 170.
| Or bid the new be English, ages hence, | |
| (For use will father what’s begot by sense). |
b. To appear or acknowledge oneself as the author of; to adopt; to take the responsibility of. Also † To represent oneself as the owner of.
1591. Horsey, Trav., App. (Hakluyt Soc.), 282. Only they shall not bring with them into our dominions, neither recarie out of our dominions, or father any other mens goods but their owne, neither sell them nor barter them away for them.
1634. Canne, Necess. Separ. (1849), 242. The report goes that he was not the proper author of it, but another did it, and got him to father it.
1662–3. J. Birkenhead, Assembly-Man, To Rdr. Unwilling to father other mens sins.
1727. Swift, To Earl of Oxford.
| Kept Company with Men of Wit, | |
| Who often Father’d what he Writ. |
1827. Scott, Jrnl. (1890), II. 25. A singular letter from a lady, requesting I would father a novel of hers. That won’t pass.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. xx. 498. By these two distinguished men Paterson’s scheme was fathered. Montague undertook to manage the House of Commons, Godfrey to manage the City.
1870. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav. Ps. xliv., heading. No other writer should be sought for to father any of the Psalms, when David will suffice.
3. To act as a father to, look after; † to carry out (a law).
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 192/1. Suppose also that in the same common weale there were no magistrate to execute and as it were to father those lawes.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., IV. ii. 395.
| Luc. I good youth, | |
| And rather Father thee, then Master thee. |
1892. Pall Mall G., 3 May, 3/1. The way in which Khama fathers his people.
4. † a. To trace the father of. Obs. b. To father oneself: to indicate one’s paternity. Obs. exc. dial.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, I. i. 111. The Lady fathers her selfe: be happie Lady, for you are like an honorable father.
1680. Burnet, Rochester, 14. When any thing extraordinary that way came out, as a Child is fathered sometimes by its Resemblance, so was it laid at his Door as its Parent and Author.
1878. Cumbrld. Gloss., s.v. Fadder, A child having features resembling those of its father ‘fadders it sel.’
fig. 1808. Scott, in Lockhart, xviii. This spirited composition as we say in Scotland fathers itself in the manliness of its style.
6. To name or declare the father of (a child). With const. on, upon: To fix the paternity of (a child) on or upon; to affiliate to.
1570. Levins, Manip., 78/1. To Father, patrem nominare.
1611. Speed, Theat. Gt. Brit., I. i. 2/1. If there had been more Nations of fame in this Iland, Brute should haue had more sons fathered on him.
1625. K. Long, trans. Barclay’s Argenis, II. xxii. 141. Neptune, vpon whom, for the most part, our Ancestors haue fathered all the men of extraordinary huge stature.
17[?]. Young Tamlane, 67–8.
| Father my bairn on whom I will, | |
| I’ll father nane on thee. |
1885. Daily News, 13 March, 7/3. He advised her to father her child. Ibid. He had asked her to father it upon the gardener.
6. fig. of 5. To name the author of. rare. With const. † of, on, upon: To ascribe (some thing) to (a person) as his production or work; to attribute the authorship of (something) to (a person).
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., I. xxii. 11. This saiying … fathered on Socrates.
1548. Gest, Pr. Masse, I viij. The canones whiche the catholiques father of ye apostles.
c. 1590. Cartwright, in Presbyt. Rev., Jan. 1888, 120. Especially if these be ther workes which are fathered of them.
a. 1635. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (Arb.), 37. It is a likely report that they father on him.
1764. Franklin, Narrative, Wks. 1887, III. 269. Horrid perversion of Scripture and of religion! To father the worst of crimes on the God of peace and love!
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, xix. 398. Those who, at the Cape, supplied ammunition to the Kaffirs, under similar circumstances, and coolly fathered the traffic on the Missionaries.
b. To father (a thing) upon (something else): to trace to (something) as a source or origin; to lay to the account of.
1608. Yorksh. Trag., I. iii.
| Where now, fathering his riots on his youth, | |
| Which time and tame experience will shake off. |
1680. Boyle, Scept. Chem., vi. 433. Such Phantastick and Un-intelligible Discourses … father’d upon such excellent Experiments.
1702. The English Theophrastus, 270. We Father upon Love several Dealings and Intercourses, in which it is not concern’d, than the Doge is, in all that is done at Venice.
1774. Fletcher, Fict. & Gen. Creed, Pref. Wks. 1795, III. 313. The principle on which such a doctrine might be justly fathered.
c. loosely, const. on, upon: To put upon, impose upon, attach to.
1816. Kirby & Spence, Entomol. (1828), II. xvii. 47. This interpretation has been fathered upon them.
1874. H. R. Reynolds, John Bapt., iii. § 1. 147, note. Reveals some attempt to father on the Christian Church the limitations and orders of the Jewish priesthood.
1885. Law Times, LXXIX. 190/2. Ihe word ‘land’ is to bear the meaning which is fathered upon it by sub-sect. 10 (i.).
† 7. With complement: To assert to be (something) in origin; to declare to have been originally.
1606. Warner, Alb. Eng., XIV. lxxxiii. (1612), 346. The Scots do father it The Stone that Iacob … Did sleepe vpon.
1620–55. I. Jones, Stone-Heng (1725), 13. Jeffrey Monmouth … was the first … that father’d Stone-Heng their Monument.
