a. and adv. [f. as prec. + -LIKE.] Like a father.
A. adj.
† 1. Resembling one’s father. Obs.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VII. vi. 135. Fadyre-lyk in all hys Dedis.
1614. R. Wilkinson, Paire Serm., 11. It were well for the child, if it were not so fatherlike … as it is.
2. Having the aspect and bearing of a father.
1887. Pall Mall G., 5 April, 2/1. One of the most loveable and father-like men I have ever seen.
3. Such as is proper to a father; such as a father would do; fatherly.
1570. Levins, Manip., 122. Fatherlike, paternus.
1581. J. Merbecke, A Booke of Notes and Common places, 138. This manner of broaking of bread was verie fatherlike and commendable among the elders of olde time.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon., iv. § 67 (1642), 296. His sonnes children he tooke especiall care of, and gave them father-like education, tenderly affecting them.
1654. Fuller, Comm. Ruth (1868), 127. Young men will herupon take occasion, not only to slight and neglect, but also to contemn and despise their paternal distance and father-like authority.
1681. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen. (1693), 1079. This is right father-like; or the right part of a father.
1876. Whitby Gloss., Faather-like, fatherly.
B. adv. As a father, in a fatherly manner.
1604. Drayton, Owl, 539. How father-like he giues affliction bread.
1675. Brooks, Paradice Opened, 176. Observe how fatherlike he melts and mournes over them, and how mercy interposeth her four several Hows.
1834. H. F. Lyte, Hymn, ‘Praise my Soul.’
| Father-like he tends and spares us; | |
| Well our feeble from He knows. |
1864. Tennyson, En. Ard., 153.
| Forward she started with a happy cry, | |
| And laid the feeble infant in his arms; | |
| Whom Enoch took, and handled all his limbs, | |
| Appraised his weight and fondled fatherlike. |
