Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state of being a father.

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

  • noun The state of being a father; fatherhood; paternity.

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

  • noun The state of being a father; fatherhood; paternity.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

father +‎ -ship

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Examples

  • Master Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership.

    Ulysses 2003

  • And he gave to them the fathership and control of men and of all creatures.

    Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest Katharine Berry [Editor] Judson

  • It sustains a relation of spiritual fathership to common fathers, and offers choicest counsel to those who would assume the office of family-teacher honestly and in the fear of God.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 72, October, 1863 Various

  • His fathership, as they told us, had acquired the priory by means of a gift of a thousand ducats, which he had sent to the Father Provincial.

    Mexico and its Religion With Incidents of Travel in That Country During Parts of the Years 1851-52-53-54, and Historical Notices of Events Connected With Places Visited Robert A. Wilson

  • You should hear her chaff him anent this god-fathership, on the strength of which she claims that the captain has returned to the bosom of the

    French and Oriental Love in a Harem Mario Uchard

  • Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership.

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

  • With a growing understanding he saw her as the natural product of such a fathership as Old Jimmie's, and of the cynical environment which Old Jimmie had given her in which crime was a matter of course.

    Children of the Whirlwind Leroy Scott 1902

  • Marduk, while absorbing the rôle of the old Bel, is still bound to acknowledge the fathership of Ea.

    The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Morris Jastrow 1891

  • God the Father is He, said St. Paul, from whom every fathership in heaven and earth is named, that we may be such fathers to our children as God is to us.

    Sermons for the Times Charles Kingsley 1847

  • In a western world where fathers can’t even go near their daughters for even normal fathership and mothers are so paranoid that they look askance any time their daughter is left alone with her father, there is real sickness going on.

    [age of consent] and a time to refrain from embracing 2009

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