noun

• (Christianity) A member of a church council.
  "In proceeding in this fashion, the fathers assembled at Pisa were following the generally accepted canonistic teaching of the day […]"
• (computing) The archived older version of a file that immediately precedes the current version, and was itself derived from the grandfather.
  "Three generations of file are usually kept, being the grandfather, father and son files."

verb

• (figuratively) To give rise to.
  "Cowards father Cowards & Baſe things Syre Bace;"

name

• (Christianity) God, the father of Creation.
• (Christianity) God the Father, who eternally begets the Son.
• (Wicca) One of the triune gods of the Horned God in Wicca, representing a man, younger than the elderly Sage and older than the boyish Master.
  "...and our Lord as Master, Father, and Sage."

noun

• (Christianity) A title given to priests.
  "Father Thomas was a good priest."
• (Christianity) One of the chief ecclesiastical authorities of the first centuries after Christ.
  "the Latin, Greek, or apostolic Fathers"
• (historical) A senator of Ancient Rome.
  "Claudius put a stop to these executions, and the Conscript Fathers, repenting, placed Gallienus among the divi , — which was equivalent to the maintenance of his acts."