Definition of "parent"

parent

/ˈpæɹ.ənt/

noun
plural parents
1. One of the two persons from whom one is immediately biologically descended; a mother or father.
  Quotations
  my trust / Like a good parent, did beget of him / A falsehood in it's contrarie, as great / As my trust was, which had indeede no limit, / A confidence sans bound.
  1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]
  And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind […]
  1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], John 9:19–20
  The NHS is naturally pro-immunisation, reassuring parents that their babies can easily cope with these jabs.
  2005 August 24, Siobhan O'Neill, The Guardian
2. A surrogate parent.
3. A third person who has provided DNA samples in an IVF procedure in order to alter faulty genetic material.
4. A person who acts as a parent in rearing a child; a step-parent or adoptive parent.
  Quotations
  It is time the international community faced the reality: we have an unmanageable, unfair, distortionary global tax regime. […] It is the starving of the public sector which has been pivotal in America no longer being the land of opportunity – with a child's life prospects more dependent on the income and education of its parents than in other advanced countries.
  2013 June 7, Joseph Stiglitz, “Globalisation is about taxes too”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 19
5. (obsolete) A relative.
6. The source or origin of something.
  Quotations
  Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.
  1785, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
  Indolence and unalimentary food are the parents of this disease; but to neither are Indians accustomed.
  1789, The Critical Review, Or, Annals of Literature, volume 68, page 341
7. (biology) An organism from which a plant or animal is immediately biologically descended.
8. (attributive) Sponsor, supporter, owner, protector.
  Quotations
  The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.
  1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick, chapter 5
  1. A parent company.
    Quotations
    The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them […] is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies. […] current tax rules make it easy for all sorts of firms to generate […] “stateless income”: profit subject to tax in a jurisdiction that is neither the location of the factors of production that generate the income nor where the parent firm is domiciled.
    2013 June 22, “T time”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 68
9. (computing) The object from which a child or derived object is descended; a node superior to another node.
10. (physics) The nuclide that decays into a daughter nuclide.
verb
third-person singular simple present parents, present participle parenting, simple past and past participle parented
1. To act as parent, to raise or rear.
  Quotations
  However, even with money and caregivers, the child is left without a parent and most likely without a plan for their emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being. A time will come when you will no longer be able to parent your child, period.
  2006, Natalie Bandlow, Parent to Child the Guide: How to Create a Comprehensive And Meaningful Journal to Prepare Your Child for Life, iUniverse, page 1
2. (programming) To provide a parent object for one or more other objects, which become the children.