fatherly

comparative more fatherly · superlative most fatherly

1. Characteristic of what is considered the ideal behaviour pertaining to fatherhood.

   fatherly advice

2. Befitting of a father; protective, paternal.

comparative more fatherly · superlative most fatherly

1. In a way pertaining to, befitting, or of a father.

   He looked fatherly at me.

   1970, Ronny Pearlman, The Monday Man, page 39

   5 more examples

   Exhorting him fatherlie to giue ouer that course.

   1589, The Return of Pasquill

   […]; tho’ God hath for a while Fatherly Chaſtiſed them by thoſe Rods which he hath afterwards conſumed.

   a. 1723, Increase Mather, “A Vindication of New-England”, in The Andros Tracts: […], New York, N.Y.: Burt Franklin, published 1869, page 27 (page 9 of chapter)

   This child is not mine as the first was, / I cannot sing it to rest, / I cannot lift it up fatherly / And bliss it upon my breast;

   1848, James Russell Lowell, “The Changeling”, in Poems, second series, Cambridge: George Nichols; Boston: B. B. Mussey and Company, page 162

   Indeed we live beneath the sky, . . / That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out / On all His children fatherly, / To bless them from the fear and doubt, / Which would be, if, from this low place, / All opened straight up to His face / Into the grand eternity.

   1850, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point”, in Poems, volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, stanza VII, page 131

   When she fell forward a little, as if she were half fainting with the pleasure, he held her, fatherly, in his arms until she recovered.

   1988, Phyllis Ann Karr, “Two Bits of Embroidery”, in Parke Godwin, editor, Invitation to Camelot: An Arthurian Anthology of Short Stories, New York, N.Y.: Ace Books, →ISBN, page 41