foster father
5
3.2
- noun
- /ˈfɔstər ˈfɑðər/
:
padre de crianza
- Kenneth's foster father took him hunting every summer, teaching him valuable skills.
I want to say I married pastor, the Pastor Carlson, my foster father, who's now passed away.
- I want to say I married pastor, the Pastor Carlson, my foster father, who's now passed away.
Examples
-
A's foster father is now coming around to wanting to adopt the baby.
Blog text (30) -
"The foster father humbly explained his desire to reunite with and continue the education of his sons.
Academic text (2003) -
My foster father lived there by choice.
-
And the foster father had to come and put the baby seat in the car for us.
Academic text (2017) -
That man was my first foster father.
Fiction book (1990) -
It's Freddy's foster father - Mr. Underwood.
Fiction book (1991) -
The previous week, my foster father, a straight 23-year-old man, visited every record store in town in a quest to locate a Nancy Sinatra album I wanted.
Blog text (16) -
They had approached Xiaoping's foster father, a rural farmer from a neighboring province, with an offer that they would give his disabled foster daughter a job in a toy factory in the city.
Academic text (2009) -
Life lessons and hard-earned advice that every boy needs to become a man and every man needs to become a respected citizen. Antwone Fisher always admired his foster father's crisp sartorial style.
Blog text (4) -
My foster father always encouraged me to pursue my dreams and supported my education.
Synonyms
1
3.5
A person who cares for a child temporarily in their home but is not the child's legal or birth parent
A man who looks after a child who is not his own
How Parental
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'foster' (a non-biological caregiving placement) + 'father' (male parent) yields a man who acts as a father in a non-biological/usually temporary caregiving role. This adj+noun compound follows common cross-linguistic patterns and is therefore readily inferable by a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Foster father comes from the old word foster, which meant to feed and care for a child, and father, meaning a male parent. Think of a man who helps raise a child who is not his own, so it means 'a man who looks after a child temporarily'.