Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition or fact of being the child of a certain parent.
  • noun Law Judicial determination of the paternity of a nonmarital child for the purposes of compelling support.
  • noun A line of descent; derivation.
  • noun The act or fact of forming a new branch, as of a society or language group.
  • noun The branch thus formed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The relation of a son or daughter to a parent: the correlative of paternity.
  • noun The establishment of a filial relation, specifically by adoption.
  • noun In law, the judicial determination of the paternity of a child, especially of a bastard; affiliation.
  • noun Any analogous close connection or relation.
  • noun An individual or group of individuals derived from one source or parent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The relationship of a son or child to a parent, esp. to a father.
  • noun (Law) The assignment of a bastard child to some one as its father; affiliation.
  • noun Descent from, or as if from, a parent; relationship like that of a son.
  • noun One that is derived from a parent or source; an offshoot.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun uncountable The condition of being a child of a specified parent
  • noun countable The ancestry or lineage shared by a group having the same bloodline
  • noun countable, law The determination of paternity

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the kinship relation between an individual and the individual's progenitors
  • noun inherited properties shared with others of your bloodline

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Latin fīliātiō, fīliātiōn-, quality of being a son, legal right of a son, from Latin fīlius, son; see dhē(i)- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • _On the contrary, _ others, considering only the subject of filiation, which is the person or hypostasis, put only one filiation in Christ, just as there is but one hypostasis or person.

    Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition Aquinas Thomas

  • For some, considering only the cause of filiation, which is nativity, put two filiations in Christ, just as there are two nativities.

    Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition Aquinas Thomas

  • Obj. 2: Further, filiation, which is said of a man as being the son of someone, his father or his mother, depends, in a way, on him: because the very being of a relation consists _in being referred to another; _ wherefore if one of two relatives be destroyed, the other is destroyed also.

    Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) From the Complete American Edition Aquinas Thomas

  • Taking the theory of evolution as a basis, Comte affirmed that the fundamental law of history was that of historic filiation, that is, the Law of the Three States.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913

  • But it is here, says Boethius, that creaturely logic breaks down when it tries to comprehend the Trinity: we have in some way to try to grasp the idea of a relation of fatherhood or filiation which is reflexive.

    Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius Marenbon, John 2005

  • This gesture of taking the son hostage, the better to placidly kill the mother, this calm affirmation, in the face of the world, of a crime of filiation that extends an imaginary guilt to an entire family is well worth recalling a few ambassadors (to France, Spain, Italy, even to the United States).

    Bernard-Henri Lévy: After Sakineh, Her Son Bernard-Henri Lévy 2010

  • This gesture of taking the son hostage, the better to placidly kill the mother, this calm affirmation, in the face of the world, of a crime of filiation that extends an imaginary guilt to an entire family is well worth recalling a few ambassadors (to France, Spain, Italy, even to the United States).

    Bernard-Henri Lévy: After Sakineh, Her Son Bernard-Henri Lévy 2010

  • This gesture of taking the son hostage, the better to placidly kill the mother, this calm affirmation, in the face of the world, of a crime of filiation that extends an imaginary guilt to an entire family is well worth recalling a few ambassadors (to France, Spain, Italy, even to the United States).

    Bernard-Henri Lévy: After Sakineh, Her Son Bernard-Henri Lévy 2010

  • Nature isn't religious because it makes any claims upon specific beliefs, but because the poet's ability to make natural surroundings "seem like society" (218) is the utmost reach of his ability to feel as though filiation could be extended, or affiliated, anywhere — to feel as if his actions and movements have an extensive and openly acknowledged impact.

    Romantic Fear 2008

  • His history is, he argued, "a biography of things, a filiation of objects, not as pictures of an exhibition, but as records of the process of their coming into existence."

    Trafficking Materials and Gendered Experimental Practices: Radium Research in Early 20th Century Vienna 2007

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  • Some offspring will bear humiliation
    In pageants of sham conciliation.
    Such steps they will take
    When money's at stake
    To make the most of a bad filiation.

    February 26, 2015