parental

Pluralparentals

1. 1
   adjective

   Having to do with a parent or with the role of being one.

   The clinic requires parental consent before treating any minor.

   Many parental duties fall on both partners equally.

   Oppositefilial

2. 2
   adjective

   Showing the warmth, care, and tenderness that suits a loving parent.

   The old coach took a parental interest in every young player.

   She spoke with a parental gentleness that calmed the whole room.

   Similarpaternal, maternal, fatherly, motherly, protective

3. 3
   adjective

   Relating to the generation of organisms that crossbreed to produce a hybrid.

   Both parental strains were homozygous for the trait being tracked.

   Geneticists recorded which features appeared in the parental generation before the cross.

   Oppositefilial

   Note

   Geneticists' bookkeeping starts here. The parental generation is the P generation, and the offspring of its cross are the filial generations, F₁, F₂ and onward, numbered by subscript. William E. Castle's Genetics & Eugenics (1916) adopts the naming from Bateson. In this use the word carries no warmth, unlike the affectionate meaning. Parental strains or lines are simply the starting stock of a cross.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   Someone who takes on the responsibilities and role of a parent for another person.

   With both parents working abroad, her aunt became the parental who signed permission slips and showed up for teacher conferences.

   In the commune, several adults served as parentals for all the children.

   Similarguardian, caregiver, carer

   Oppositeward

   Note

   The adjective turned into a noun, used as a catch-all for anyone standing in a parent's place: grandparents, step-parents, older siblings, aunts and uncles, in-laws. It takes a regular plural, parentals, and that plural is where the word does its work. It gathers everyone who might do a parent's job without having to settle who counts as a parent.

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