Parent
Pronunciation
- GenAm IPA: /ˈpɛəɹənt/, /ˈpeəɹənt/, /ˈpæɹənt/; enPR: pârʹ-ənt
- RP IPA: /ˈpɛəɹənt/; enPR: pârʹ-ənt
Origin
From Anglo-Norman parent, Middle French parent, from Latin parentem, accusative of parēns ("parent"), present participle of parere ("to breed, bring forth").
Full definition of parent
Noun
parent
(plural parents)- One of the two persons from whom one is immediately biologically descended; a mother or father. from 15th c.
- c. 1595, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, First Folio 1623, I.2:my trust
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood in it's contrarie, as great
As my trust was, which had indeede no limit,
A confidence sans bound. - Authorized Version|John|9|19–20And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind ....
- 2005, Siobhan O'Neill, The Guardian, 24 Aug 2005:The NHS is naturally pro-immunisation, reassuring parents that their babies can easily cope with these jabs.
- My twin sister says she loves our parents, but honestly, I dislike them.
- A person who acts as a parent in rearing a child; a step-parent or adoptive parent.
- 2013-06-07, Joseph Stiglitz, Globalisation is about taxes too, It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. … It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.
- (obsolete) A relative. 15th-18th c.
- The source or origin of something. from 16th c.
- 1785, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia:Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.
- (biology) An organism from which a plant or animal is immediately biologically descended. from 17th c.
- A parent company. from 20th c.
- 2013-06-22, T time, The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them...is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies....current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate...“stateless incomeâ€: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.
- (computing) The object from which a child or derived object is descended; a node superior to another node. from 20th c.
Synonyms
- (person from whom one is descended) progenitor
- (computing: object from which a child is descended) mother