Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who begets, gives birth to, or nurtures and raises a child; a father or mother.
- n. An ancestor; a progenitor.
- n. An organism that produces or generates offspring.
- n. A guardian; a protector.
- n. A parent company.
- n. A source or cause; an origin: Despair is the parent of rebellion.
- v. To act as a parent to; raise and nurture: "A genitor who does not parent the child is not its parent” ( Ashley Montagu).
- v. To cause to come into existence; originate.
- v. To act as a parent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A father or mother; one who has generated or produced: correlated to child, offspring, descendant.
- n. By extension, any animal in relation to its offspring, or a plant in relation to other plants produced from it; any organism in relation to the individual organisms which it produces by any process of reproduction.
- n. One who or that which produces; an author; a cause; a source.
- n. A kinsman; relative.
- Serving as or pertaining to a parent or source.
Wiktionary
- n. A person who acts as a parent in rearing a child; a step-parent or adoptive parent.
- v. To act as parent, to raise or rear.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who begets, or brings forth, offspring; a father or a mother.
- n. That which produces; cause; source; author; begetter.
WordNet 3.0
- v. bring up
- n. a father or mother; one who begets or one who gives birth to or nurtures and raises a child; a relative who plays the role of guardian
- n. an organism (plant or animal) from which younger ones are obtained
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman parent, Middle French parent, from Latin parentem, accusative of parēns ("parent"), present participle of parere ("to breed, bring forth"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin parēns, parent-, from past active participle of parere, to give birth. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Now, here is plainly an abundant opportunity for congenital variations; for it is seen that each individual does not come from germ material _identical with that from which either parent came, but from some of this material mixed with a similar amount from a different parent_.”
“And I used the term parent in the loosest sense of the word.”
“Women understand that the decision to become a parent is among the most personal and important that an individual ever makes in her life.”
The Huffington Post: Sue Dunlap: Carly Fiorina: Too Extreme For California
“AS for kids, if their parent is a U.S. citizen, then presumably, they are too, and if they are with the parent, then it will be hard to hold them.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Affirmative Action and Racial Profiling Revisited
“•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national”
“•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)”
“It also runs a program for 450 children of migrants, so that they're not forgotten when a parent is away.”
The Huffington Post: Catholic Relief Services: Help for Sri Lanka's Abused Maids
“When you think of Will Arnett, still fondly remembered as the clueless Gob Bluth in Arrested Development, the word "parent" isn't the first word that necessarily jumps out at you.”
Brazilian Waxing, Bleeping and Babies: 15 Personal Questions with Up All Night's Will Arnett
“Being a parent is a choice … you choose to be a good parent or a bad parent.”
Abortion Means Never Having To Say You’re Sorry | Her Bad Mother
“I'm not complaining at all, because being a parent is a full-time job.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘parent’.
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POL - What is Mitt talking about?
Key terms from Mitt Romney's election campaign
good and generous..., hard fought election, go back to work, optimistic and po..., confident in the ..., optimism, uniquely American, nation of immigrants, want a better life, life in that plac..., pursuit of the ri..., richness of this ... and 369 more...
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It's a trap
trap, gin, snare, deadfall, trapezium, trapezoid, trappist, venus flytrap, foothold trap, trapping pit, glue trap, trap set and 98 more...
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POL - campaign tokenisms
Positive words and vague promises. THE words and expressions to use when you want to win over the masses or just don't know what to say.
"CAPITAL" stands for the administrative capital...grow, greatest country, greatest, grow the economy, great nation, great decisions, great, government, great NATIONAL su..., good times, good job, good and generous... and 751 more...
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webdev
random webdev lingo used primarily in computer programming.
( open list, randomness, technical jargon, geek speak )
more:
ajax, user, admin, frontend, backend, database, sql, protocol, call, dom, layout, ui and 439 more... -
SCIE - graph theory
antiparallel, convex polyhedron, nonadjacent, acyclic, isomorphic, vertex, graph, planar, homomorphism, factorization, adjacency, disjoint and 423 more...
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people (good)
nouns for good people / words that describe good people.
go to the bad people list
( people, character, descriptor, noun )philanthropist, angel, environmentalist, activist, advocate, volunteer, hero, parent, friend, virtuoso, gentleman, helper and 62 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Theme Prompts
There's a fiction meme (mostly on Livejournal) where writers use words as a prompt for a short story snippet. I've been collecting the words that show up on these lists as prompts for creative writ...
white, black, gray, red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet, queen, king, prince and 407 more...
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de-verb this word
Nouns made into unnatural verbs, nouns used as verbs, verbs that used to be intransitive
systematize, alphabeticalize, problematize, impact, monetize, incentivize, actualize, randomize, conceptualize, exit, access, resource and 31 more...
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tutak.com's Words
jesus, parent, student, math, los angeles, mac, books, antidisestablishm..., prolix, tendentious, gaoler, actantial and 1 more...
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Tunie: Belong
by Great Big Sea.
Jenny said goodbye this afternoon
As far as I can tell
She can't bear the goodbye evenings
Or the morning-afters of farewell
She says "Here yo...care, last flower in th..., whispered, fear, won't be back, front door, path, beat, cousins, close, foreign coast, tide and 33 more...
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It's All Relative
parent, child, sibling, mother, father, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousin and 22 more...
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Verbed!
"You can word anything if you just verb it." -Bucky Katt
plate, book, house, mouse, pile, leaf, pill, wick, tunnel, spring, pelt, peel and 80 more...
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Nouns That I Hate Seeing Used As Verbs
Tweets
Looking for tweets for parent.
sonofgroucho See also parenthood. Jan 14, 2008