Noun

(en noun)

(Christianity) The highest form of bishop, in the ancient world having authority over other bishops in the province but now generally as an honorary title; in Roman Catholicism, considered a bishop second only to the Pope in rank.

In Biblical contexts, a male leader of a family, tribe or ethnic group, especially one of the twelve sons of Jacob (considered to have created the twelve tribes of Israel) or (in plural) Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

* 1526 , (William Tyndale), trans. Bible , Acts II:

Men and brethren, lett me frely speake unto you of the patriarke David: For he is both deed and buryed, and his sepulcre remayneth with us unto this daye.

A founder of a political or religious movement, an organization or an enterprise.

An old leader of a village or community.

* 1819 , ”:

The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he took his seat from morning to night, just moving sufficiently to

The male head of a tribal line or family.

Noun

(en noun)

One of the two persons from whom one is immediately biologically descended; a mother or father.

My twin sister says she loves our parents , but honestly, I dislike them .

* c. 1595 , (William Shakespeare), The Tempest , First Folio 1623, I.2:

my trust / Like a good parent , did beget of him / A falsehood in it's contrarie, as great / As my trust was, which had indeede no limit, / A confidence sans bound.

*

And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind [...].

* 2005 , Siobhan O'Neill, The Guardian , 24 Aug 2005:

The NHS is naturally pro-immunisation, reassuring parents that their babies can easily cope with these jabs.

A person who acts as a parent in rearing a child; a step-parent or adoptive parent.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Joseph Stiglitz)

, volume=188, issue=26, page=19, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Globalisation is about taxes too , passage=It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.}}

(obsolete) A relative.

The source or origin of something.

* 1785 , (Thomas Jefferson), Notes on the State of Virginia :

Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.

(biology) An organism from which a plant or animal is immediately biologically descended.

(label) Sponsor, supporter, owner, protector.

*{{quote-book, year=1944, author=(w)

, title= The Three Corpse Trick, section=chapter 5 , passage=The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.}}

# A parent company.

#* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= T time , passage=The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them

(computing) The object from which a child or derived object is descended; a node superior to another node.