Fathership

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state or condition of being a father; the responsibilities, rights, and roles associated with fatherhood; the quality or character of a father in relation to a child
2. The experience and status of one who is a male parent; the set of duties and social expectations tied to fatherhood; the nature of paternal influence and care within a family
3. The condition of fulfilling the role of a father; the legal and emotional aspects involved in being a dad; the embodiment of paternal qualities and support for offspring

Etymology: "Fathership" is a plain compound: "father" with the suffix "-ship", which attaches to a noun to name a state, condition or role, as in "friendship" or "kingship". Combining the two gives the sense of the role or condition of being a father. The compound descends from Middle English "fadership", itself built the same way from "fader" and "-ship". Middle English was the English of roughly the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, and this form shows that English speakers were already attaching "-ship" to family nouns long before the modern spelling settled.

Synonyms: fatherhood, paternity, parenthood

Antonyms: motherhood