paternal
adjective
Simple meaning
Of or about one's father, his genes, his relatives, or his side of a family.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
puhturnuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pəˈtɝnəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Fatherly; behaving as or characteristic of a father.
Belonging to or inherited from one's father
“Spent his childhood on the paternal farm.”
Of or pertaining to one's father, his genes, his relatives, or his side of a family.
Acting as a father.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of or pertaining to one's father, his genes, his relatives, or his side of a family.
Used this way, paternal is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use paternal
- “Spent his childhood on the paternal farm.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Characteristic of a mother.
The quality of being paternal, i.e. like a father, e.g. characterized by behaving in a benevolent yet intrusive manner….
Having the qualities of a father.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The benignity and protectiveness of or befitting a father.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: fatherly
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.