dad.
A father, a male parent.
Meaning & usage
A father, a male parent.
His dad was always there for him.
Used to address one's father; often capitalized.
Happy Father's Day, dad!
Used to address an older adult male.
Where this word comes from
From Early Modern English dadd, dadde (circa 1500), undoubtedly older, from unrecorded Middle English *dadde, of uncertain ultimate origin. Compare West Frisian deite (“dad, daddy”), Swabian Dede (“Godfather”). * Perhaps of Celtic origin, compare Welsh and Breton tad (from Proto-Brythonic *tad), Old Irish data; and possibly related to Russian дя́дя (djádja, “uncle”) and/or Russian де́душка (déduška, “grandfather”), all imitative. In Welsh, when subject to soft mutation (which occurs in vocative contexts, among others), tad becomes dad. * Perhaps imitative of a child's first uttered syllables da, da. * Possibly from a metathetic variation of a hypothetical Old English *ætta, *atta (“father”), from Proto-West Germanic *attō, from Proto-Germanic *attô ("father, forefather"; whence also North Frisian ate, aatj, taatje, tääte (“father; dad”), Middle High German tate (“father, dad”) (whence German Tate (“dad”), Bavarian tatte (“dad”), Cimbrian tatta (“dad”)), Icelandic táta (“dad”)), from Proto-Indo-European *átta (“father”), whence Sanskrit तत (tata, “father”).
To be a father to; to parent.
To act like a dad.
Where this word comes from
From Early Modern English dadd, dadde (circa 1500), undoubtedly older, from unrecorded Middle English *dadde, of uncertain ultimate origin. Compare West Frisian deite (“dad, daddy”), Swabian Dede (“Godfather”). * Perhaps of Celtic origin, compare Welsh and Breton tad (from Proto-Brythonic *tad), Old Irish data; and possibly related to Russian дя́дя (djádja, “uncle”) and/or Russian де́душка (déduška, “grandfather”), all imitative. In Welsh, when subject to soft mutation (which occurs in vocative contexts, among others), tad becomes dad. * Perhaps imitative of a child's first uttered syllables da, da. * Possibly from a metathetic variation of a hypothetical Old English *ætta, *atta (“father”), from Proto-West Germanic *attō, from Proto-Germanic *attô ("father, forefather"; whence also North Frisian ate, aatj, taatje, tääte (“father; dad”), Middle High German tate (“father, dad”) (whence German Tate (“dad”), Bavarian tatte (“dad”), Cimbrian tatta (“dad”)), Icelandic táta (“dad”)), from Proto-Indo-European *átta (“father”), whence Sanskrit तत (tata, “father”).
A lump or piece.
A blow; act of striking something.
Where this word comes from
From dade (“to strike heavily”), dade (“a heavy blow or thud”). Probably onomatopoeic.
To throw against something; to dash.
Where this word comes from
From dade (“to strike heavily”), dade (“a heavy blow or thud”). Probably onomatopoeic.
Alternative form of daad (“Arabic letter ض”).
Try it on your idea.
dad has 3 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.