parent
Pluralparents
Verbparents, parenting, parented
Pluralparents
Formsparents, parenting, parented
- 1A father or mother; a person who has given birth to or fathered a child, or who raises a child as their own, including by adoption or fostering.
A good parent listens as much as they guide.
The foster parents welcomed another child into their home.
UsageFor aunts, cousins, and other wider family, say relatives, not parents.
Note
The everyday sense carries the word's history. Literally, a parent is "one bringing forth", yet the sense now covers adopting and fostering as fully as begetting.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The literal etymological sense is someone bringing forth. en.wiktionary.org
- 2To act as a parent by raising and rearing a child.
Many couples parent quite differently from how they were raised.
She parents alone and manages remarkably well.
UsageThe related noun parenting appears in parenting skills and single parenting. For simply bringing up a child, raise and bring up are plainer.
Note
Natalie Bandlow's Parent to Child the Guide (2006) uses the transitive frame: "you will no longer be able to parent your child."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Natalie Bandlow wrote Parent to Child the Guide. en.wiktionary.org
- The book contains the quoted words, using parent transitively. en.wiktionary.org
- 3A company that owns or controls one or more other companies, known as its subsidiaries.
The parent reported strong earnings across all its subsidiaries.
When the parent restructured, several divisions were merged.
UsageUsually parent company. The parent alone works once it is clear a company, not a person, is meant.
Oppositesubsidiary
Note
Business English often drops the second word of parent company and lets the first stand alone, as in "the parent reported strong earnings". It is the commercial branch of the owner-and-protector meaning, and its partner term is subsidiary.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The company sense is a commercial specialization of the owner-and-protector sense. en.wiktionary.org
- A controlled entity is a subsidiary of its parent. standards.aasb.gov.au
- 4An organism that has directly produced a particular plant or animal as its offspring.
Each parent contributes half of the offspring's genetic material.
Breeders select the strongest parents to improve the herd.
Similarprogenitor
Note
Biology uses the word strictly. A parent is one generation up, the organism an individual came from directly, so a grandparent or remote ancestor does not qualify. The term applies to plants as readily as to animals, and breeders speak of selecting parents for the traits they want to see in the offspring.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- A biological parent is an immediate progenitor, one generation above its offspring; this includes plants and animals and excludes more remote ancestors. en.wiktionary.org
- Breeders select parents for characteristics desired in their offspring. yourgenome.org
- 5The source or origin from which something else arises or develops.
Latin is the parent of Spanish, French, Italian, and several other modern languages.
That small workshop was the parent of a global industry.
UsageUsually the parent of something: Latin is the parent of Spanish. It has a formal, literary ring.
Similarsource, origin, mother, root, cradle
Note
A figure of speech that treats causes as begetters, usually in the frame "the parent of something". Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) calls misery the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. The Critical Review of 1789 names indolence and poor food the parents of a disease.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Thomas Jefferson wrote Notes on the State of Virginia, first published in 1785. en.wikipedia.org
- Jefferson's book describes misery as the parent of affecting passages in poetry. en.wikisource.org
- The Critical Review used the parents metaphor for indolence and poor food in 1789. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 6A sponsor, supporter, owner, or protector of a person, group, or cause.
For decades the institute served as parent to the city's arts scene.
She saw herself as parent and guardian of the old traditions.
Similarpatron, sponsor, guardian, protector, backer
Note
Miles Burton's The Three Corpse Trick (1944) describes a battered dinghy painted like its parent ship, the larger vessel it belongs to. In this attributive use the word marks the senior partner in a relationship of ownership or support, and the same habit produces parent company.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The Three Corpse Trick was published in 1944 under the name Miles Burton. en.wikipedia.org
- The novel describes a battered dinghy painted the same colour as its parent ship. en.wiktionary.org
- 7In a hierarchy, the node or object from which a child or derived object descends.
Each node stores a reference to its parent in the tree.
The widget inherits its size from the parent unless you override it.
Oppositechild
Note
Computing borrowed family vocabulary for its trees. A node's parent sits directly above it and its children sit below, and every node except the root has exactly one parent. Mother occasionally replaces it with the same meaning. In interface toolkits the relation carries inheritance, so a child widget is placed relative to its parent and can take settings such as its font from it.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Computing tree terminology derives from family-tree vocabulary. faculty.cs.niu.edu
- In a tree, parents and children are directly connected, conventionally drawn with parents above children; every non-root node has exactly one parent. en.wikipedia.org
- Parent-child widget relationships do not generally entail inheritance of size or position. Layout managers can arrange child widgets, and positions are expressed relative to the parent. Settings such as font properties can propagate from parent to child. doc.qt.io
- 8A third person who has contributed DNA in an IVF procedure to replace faulty genetic material.
The clinic recorded the third parent who provided healthy mitochondrial DNA.
A child born this way carries genetic material from a third parent.
Similardonor
- 9The nuclide that undergoes radioactive decay to produce a daughter nuclide.
Uranium-238 is the parent of a long radioactive decay chain.
By comparing the parent to its daughter, geologists can date rocks.
Oppositedaughter
Note
Nuclear physics pairs the word with daughter rather than child. A parent nuclide decays into a daughter, and that daughter may in turn become the parent of the next step in a decay chain. Radiometric dating rests on this relationship: it compares how much of the parent remains with how much daughter has built up.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- In nuclear physics, a parent nuclide decays into a daughter nuclide. nrc.gov
- A daughter nuclide may itself decay, becoming the parent in the next step of a decay chain. epa.gov
- Radiometric dating uses the relative amounts of parent and daughter isotopes. humanorigins.si.edu
- 10A relative or kinsman; a member of one's wider family or kin.
Note
An older, wider meaning in which any relative counted. In the old pairing "parents and friends," the word meant kin in general, not just mothers and fathers.
- 11To attach an object to another object as its child in a hierarchy, so that it inherits the other object's movement or properties.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Latin pariō ("I breed, bring forth") had the old participle parēns ("parent"), whose accusative form parentem passed into Anglo-Norman and Middle French as parent. Middle English borrowed it with the same spelling.