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Foster-father   /fˈɑstər-fˈɑðər/   Listen
Foster-father

noun
1.
A man who is a foster parent.  Synonym: foster father.






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"Foster-father" Quotes from Famous Books



... monarch of all Ireland. He was unmarried, but he had many foster-sons, princes from the Four Provinces, who were sent by their fathers as tokens of loyalty and affection to the Ard-Ri, and his duties as a foster-father were righteously acquitted. Among the young princes of his household there was one, Crimthann, son of Ae, King of Leinster, whom the High King preferred to the others over whom he held fatherly sway. Nor was this wonderful, for the lad loved him also, and was as eager and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... of a narrow defile through which the enemy were compelled to pass, and as they entered the pass the Thebans fell upon them, killed their king Erginus, and completely routed them. In this engagement Amphitryon, the kind friend and foster-father of Heracles, lost his life. The hero now advanced upon Orchomenus, the capital of the Minyans, where he burned the royal castle and sacked ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... pierced by the god of love. And Ruru by means of his companions made his father Pramati, the son of Bhrigu, acquainted with his passion. And Pramati demanded her of the far-famed Sthulakesa for his son. And her foster-father betrothed the virgin Pramadvara to Ruru, fixing the nuptials for the day when the star Varga-Daivata ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... together set the little table before her. She looked at it with soft, excited cries of surprise and delight, instantly divining that the unopened parcels and sealed boxes contained more of the gifts which her foster-father was constantly lavishing upon her. He smiled down at her beaming face and dancing eyes, and then taking out his pocket-knife he cut the cords and removed the covers of the boxes. As the wrappings fell away, ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks

... spiritual consolation when she received him on that particular day of the year. The friend cast his eyes on the calendar of the diocese of Munster, and saw that on that day they not only kept Mid-Lent Sunday, but likewise the Feast of St. Joseph, the foster-father of our Lord; he was not aware of this before, because in other places the feast of St. Joseph is kept on the 19th, and he remarked this circumstance to Sister Emmerich, and asked her whether she did not think that was the cause of her speaking ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... of Zamora, saw that he had quiet possession of both his brother's kingdoms, they feared that he would come against them and disherit his sister also. And for this reason they took Don Arias Gonzalo to be their chief captain, Doa Urraca's foster-father, that by his means they might protect themselves, if need should be. And it came to pass as they had feared, for King Don Sancho knew that his sisters greatly loved Don Alfonso, and he thought that by their counsel he had fled from the Monastery, especially by ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... the morrow to speak with their father and with their foster-father, and they bade them farewell, and Fionnuala made ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... cornfield. This formed an excellent halting-place, as the men were billeted in the houses, each giving the other mutual protection. We formed our mess in part of the rooms of the headman's house, one Russool of Khusht; he was foster-father to the late Nizam-ul-mulk, but had acknowledged the opposition and joined Sher Afzul. (In the photograph he is sitting half hidden behind the Mehter's left arm, ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon

... threatening to have me whipped if I dared to show myself again. I ran away screaming and crying. I had not gone a hundred yards from the house when I met an old man, whom I recognised as being one of my foster-father's servants. 'Come along, Antonio,' he said, taking hold of my hand, 'come along, my poor boy, that house is now closed to us both for ever. We must both look out and see how we can earn a crust ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... a mulish little toad," cried Simon, angrily. "I begged him at first, then I threatened, and when prayers and threats were of no use I punished him, as a naughty boy deserves when he will not do what his foster-father bids him do. But even blows did not bring him to it; the obstinate youngster would not sing the merry song with me, and since then he has not spoken a word. [Footnote: Historical.- -See Beauehesne'a "Histoirede Louis XVII.," ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... Rosendo, he is well!" cried the girl, bounding up and down and dancing about the tall form of her foster-father. Then, darting to Jose, she seized his hand and cried, "Now to see my ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Flea's and Flukey's fourteenth birthday the boy was taken into his foster-father's trade of thieving. At first he was allowed only to enter the houses and deftly unbar the door for an easier egress for Eli Cronk and Lem Crabbe. Later he was commanded to snatch up anything of value he could. Many were the times he wept in boyish bitterness against the ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... appeared for many a long day, with humour that is Irish without being too broadly of the brogue, and with people who are distinctive without ever becoming unnatural. The dear old tramping quack-doctor, Oriel's foster-father, in particular might well be praised in language that would sound exaggerated. Mr. DUFFY'S work, depending as it does mainly on a flow of charming and even exquisite side incident, suggests that he is no more than beginning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... king to wait till her foster-father Kanwa, who had gone out on a pilgrimage, would come back and give his consent. But the king, becoming importunate, she at last gives her consent. They are married according to the gandharva form, on the condition that the issue of the marriage should occupy ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... did as her foster-father had advised, and it was proclaimed through the streets that the men of Zamora should meet in council at St. Salvador's. When they were all assembled, Donya Urraca arose and said, Don Sancho bids me give him Zamora, either for a price or in ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... problem and working along similar lines. Haydn was simply the greatest in genius of the instrumental writers of his day. His works have lived by virtue of the superiority, i.e., the greater spontaneity and vitality, of their contents. He should be called the 'foster-father,' rather than the father of the symphony and quartet for he raised them from feebleness to strength and authority." To him must be given the honor of establishing the types of instrumental composition which ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding

... as to the source from which Eugene Field derived pretty nearly everything that won for him such meed of fame as fell to his lot, let me quote from an interview with Melvin L. Gray, his guardian and foster-father, printed in the Helena Independent, September 6th, 1895, shortly before his ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... the upper part of the body being secured, the aorta begins to descend. But now imagine of what importance it must be, that this head-artery—the foster-father of the whole body—should be sheltered from every accident. The aorta once divided, death is inevitable; you might as well have your head cut off at once; and thus it has been fixed in the best—that is to say, the safest—place. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... baser species of pride, born of the Earth and Eolus; that is to say, of sensual and vain conceits. His foster-father and the keeper of his castle is Ignorance. (Book I. ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... man named Kaleihokuu, an influential priest, who at last adopted him as one of his children. Umi always kept at the head of the farmers and fishermen, and a considerable number, recognizing his physical superiority, voluntarily enrolled themselves under his orders and those of his foster-father; he was only known by the name of Hanai (foster-child) of Kaleihokuu. Meditating probably, even then, a way of acquiring supreme power, Umi exerted himself to gain the sympathies of the people, in whose labors he took an incredible part. There are seen to this day, above Laupahoehoe, the fields which ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... to enter into this hut, nor himself to speak even a single word in the hearing of these children. At the expiration of two years, as the shepherd was one day coming into the hut to feed these children, they both cried out, with hands extended towards their foster-father, beccos, beccos. The shepherd, surprised to hear a language that was quite new to him, but which they repeated frequently afterwards, sent advice of this to the king, who ordered the children to be brought before him, in order that he himself ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... idiot; but he certainly is an unamiable, truculent savage. He has been reared by a dwarf and cripple, Mime, and the first we see of him is on his entry with a wild bear in leash, which beast he drives at his terrified foster-father. The justification is that he feels instinctively that Mime is bad, low and cunning—and it does not justify him: Mime, with an ulterior purpose, it is true, has saved him from death by starvation in his infancy, and nurtured him, and the least ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... withers and patted it on the rump. Then he sat down and made a copy of it, idealizing it by injecting a few "betterments," then trotted it out for inspection with tail and mane plaited and bells on its patent-leather surcingle. He did not claim to be its real father—only its foster-father. He introduced it to the House with a very lucid review of the whole agitation for improvement in the Grain and Inspection Acts since "Johnny" Millar, of Indian Head, Saskatchewan, handed in the Royal Grain Commission ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... purchased a handsome property on the outskirts of Sanford, and, after much persuasion, had, with one exception, induced the occupants of the little gray house to share it with her. Soon afterward Mr. Stevens, Constance's foster-father, whose name she still bore and refused to change, had accepted a position as first violin in a symphony orchestra and had gone to fulfill his destiny in the world of music which he loved. Uncle John Roland and little Charlie, ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... weeping Bertalda; "you surely know; you have discovered them, you wonderful being, for otherwise you would not have thus torn me heart. Are they perhaps already here? Can it be?" Her eye passed quickly over the brilliant company and lingered on a lady of high rank who was sitting next her foster-father. Undine, however, turned toward the door, while her eyes overflowed with the sweetest emotion. "Where are the poor waiting parents?" she inquired, and, the old fisherman and his wife advanced hesitatingly from the crowd of spectators. Their glance rested inquiringly now on Undine, now on the ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... Jesus Christ more than one Father? A. God the Father, the First Person of the Blessed Trinity, is the only real and true Father of Jesus Christ, as the Blessed Virgin is His true Mother. St. Joseph, whom we also call His father, was only His foster-father or guardian ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous

... came beside the bed, the King said to him, "Most faithful John, I feel my end approaching, and have no anxiety except about my son. He is still of tender age, and cannot always know how to guide himself. If thou dost not promise me to teach him everything that he ought to know, and to be his foster-father, I cannot close my eyes in peace." Then answered Faithful John, "I will not forsake him, and will serve him with fidelity, even if it should cost me my life." On this, the old King said, "Now I die in comfort and peace." Then he added, "After my death, thou shalt ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... over with me, and with Morten at the same time." This thought came across Joergen's mind out at sea, where his foster-father had been taken suddenly ill: he was in a high fever. This was just a little way from the outer reef. Joergen ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... life. For, entering the University of Virginia, he made the mistake of associating with a fast set, with whom he had no business, and ended by losing heavy sums of money, which he was, of course, unable to pay, and which his foster-father very properly refused to pay for him. Instead, he removed the boy from college and put him to work in his ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... My foster-father was killed in an affray with the Indians. Boy as I was, I went through a brief campaign with the savages, and my own rifle had more than once brought down the treacherous foe. I had faced danger and ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic

... who attended Dionysus, being his foster-father and teacher; assisted in the war of the giants, and slew Enceladus; had the gift of vaticination; is represented as mounted on an ass and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... to Odin's will. By the fortune of war, Hjordis, bearing a babe under her girdle, came into the hands of King Hialprek of Denmark, there she bore a son to Sigmund, Sigurd, the darling of Teutonic song and story. Regin, the king's smith, was his foster-father, and as the boy grew up the fairest and stoutest of all the Volsungs, Regin, who was of the dwarf race, urged him day by day to do a doughty deed, and slay Fafnir the Dragon. For Fafnir, Regin, and Otter had been brothers, sons of Reidmar. ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... you laugh, Undine?' asked the knight. 'Are you so pleased to hear your foster-father talk of my return ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... Haraldsson. "Leif's foster-father had that name. It is not possible that it is my ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... who had always been an obedient daughter and never crossed their will in any way, for the first time in my life opposed them and told them that never should anybody separate me from the one I loved until God himself parted us. Mother reminded me of my happy childhood, and of how much she and my foster-father had done for me, and that now they had only my happiness in view—a fact which I might not understand till I was older, she said, but must now take on trust. Beside which, Raymond would be made to feel as if a load were ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... nature, but only as he is guardian of his children, that when he quits his care of them, he loses his power over them, which goes along with their nourishment and education, to which it is inseparably annexed; and it belongs as much to the foster-father of an exposed child, as to the natural father of another. So little power does the bare act of begetting give a man over his issue; if all his care ends there, and this be all the title he hath to the name and authority of a father. And what will ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... was withdrawn, Sir Philip said, "That is a point to be considered and determined immediately; It is proper that you should assume a name till you can take that of your father; for I choose you should drop that of your foster-father; and I would have you be called by ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve

... was one pair of eyes that had regarded John McIntyre's action with perfect approval. Those eyes were now looking up at Jake Sawyer, alight with unholy joy. "Say," whispered the eldest orphan, jerking his foster-father's coat, "I like that man. He's awful bad, an' I think ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith

... swiftly in her cheeks, not so much because of the mocking words as the intonation of the voice in which they were uttered—the most wonderfully musical speaking voice she ever had heard. The angry resentment of the child's foster-father had left her unmoved but this was different. The sneering, cutting insolence came from no ordinary person. It stung her. She thought she detected a slight foreign accent in the carefully articulated words, though the phraseology ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... come your path will lead you down into the valley and my road will take me up the mountain-side,...until even our voices shall no longer reach across." He came out of his dreaming abruptly. "It is not worth while to speak further. I do not blame my foster-father that he is lifting the corner of his mouth at me. And you—you think I am talking in my sleep. Leave me, as I ordered you. There is no unfriendliness in my mind at this, but I can command myself ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... maritime customs service, Sir Robert has been a foster-father. Provided for by treaty, it was in operation before he took charge, in 1863; but to him belongs the honour of having nursed the infant up to vigorous maturity by the unwearied exertions of nearly half a century. While the post office is a new development, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... proved by the pictures preserved in the tomb of his foster-father, where he is represented in company with ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the larva inside and the provisions partly consumed. To continue the rearing at home and follow my charge's progress from day to day was a business which I could not resist; besides, as far as I was able to see, it was easily managed. I had had some practice in this foster-father's trade; my association with the Bembex, the Ammophila, the Sphex (three species of Digger-wasps.—Translator's Note.) and many others had turned me into a passable insect-rearer. I was no novice in the art of dividing an ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... portrait, as contrasting with the gloomy colours in which the story sinks at last. The warm, impulsive spirit speaks in every action of his life, from the hour when—a young child, in exile—he strikes his axe into the skull of his foster-father's murderer, to the last grand scene near Svalderoe. You trace it in his absorbing grief for the death of Geyra, the wife of his youth; the saga says, "he had no pleasure in Vinland after it," and then naively observes, "he therefore provided himself with war-ships, and ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... that Celmus was a young man of remarkable wisdom and moderation, and that the passions making no impression on him, he was changed into adamant. Some, however, assert that he was foster-father to Jupiter, by whom he was enclosed in an impenetrable tower, for revealing the immortality ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso

... to borrowing from Christian sources and it maybe that some incidents in the life of Krishna as related by the Vishnu, Bhagavata and other Puranas are borrowed from the Gospels, such as Kamsa's orders to massacre all male infants when Krishna is born, the journey of Nanda, Krishna's foster-father, to Mathura in order to pay taxes and the presentation of a pot of ointment to Krishna by a hunchback woman whom he miraculously makes straight. In estimating the importance of such coincidences we ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... be all over with me, and Martin too!" This thought struck Juergen while they were out at sea, where his foster-father had been taken alarmingly ill. The fever had seized him. They were only a few oars' strokes from the reef, and Juergen sprang from his seat, and stood up ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... truth that Myrkjartan is really my father, and he is king of the Irish and it would be easy for you betake you on board the ship that is now at Board-Ere." Olaf said, "I have spoken about it to my father, but he seemed to want to have but little to do with it; and as to the manner of my foster-father's money affairs, it so happens that his wealth is more in land or cattle than in stores of islandic market goods." [Sidenote: Melkorka's marriage] Melkorka said, "I cannot bear your being called the son of a slave-woman any longer; ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... on which the youth and his aged foster-father went towards the Rocks of the Moon, through the wild tangled paths of the snow-clad valleys. Rolf from time to time sang some verses of hymns, in which comfort and peace were promised to the penitent sinner, and Sintram ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... ever so amiable that Bernadette would see her again in her dreams. But the book which was read more than all others was the Bible, an old Bible which had been in the family for more than a hundred years, and which time and usage had turned yellow. Each winter evening Bernadette's foster-father, the only member of the household who had learnt to read, would take a pin, pass it at random between the leaves of the book, open the latter, and then start reading from the top of the right-hand page, amidst the deep attention of both the women and the children, who ended by ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... Wars (which were now ended) after he had made his Court to his Grandfather, he thought in Honour he ought to make a Visit to Imoinda, the Daughter of his Foster-father, the dead General; and to make some Excuses to her, because his Preservation was the Occasion of her Father's Death; and to present her with those Slaves that had been taken in this last Battle, as the Trophies of her Father's Victories. When he came, attended ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... it food, but after a space Sigmund heard him laugh aloud for joy, for within the wrappings lay the sword of the Branstock. And Sinfiotli cried out the joyous tidings to his foster-father, and tarried not to set the point to the stone that sundered them, and lo, the blade pierced through, and Sigmund grasped the point. Then sawed Sigmund and Sinfiotli together till they cleft the stone, and they hewed full hard at the roofing, till they cast the turfs aside, and their hearts ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... purpose, and then I founded the masses which are celebrated four times yearly in the church of Saint Sulpice. The fulfilment of his pious desire, is the only offering I can make to the memory of my dear foster-father. Upon the days on which the masses are said I attend, and in his name repeat the prayers that are required. This is all that a man with my opinions can undertake; and this is no hypocrisy, nor can the Omniscient—if that great spirit of nature be indeed capable of human passions—feel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... breaks the laden camel's back, this piece of information crushed the sinking spirits of Mr Dombey. He motioned his child's foster-father to the door, who departed by no means unwillingly: and then turning the key, paced up and down the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... and got two of them." And Pete knew that the very folk who seemed proud of the fact would be the first to condemn him for the killing of Gary. He was outlawed—not for avenging the death of his foster-father, but actually because he had defended his own life, a fact difficult to establish in court and which would weigh little against the evidence of the six or eight men who had heard him challenge Gary at the round-up. Jim Bailey had been right. Men ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... assert, but what does Catherine see in him? He is a scholar?—well, the College of Navarre has furnished food for the gallows before this. A poet?—rhyming will not fill the pot. Rhymes are a thin diet for two lusty young folk like these. And who knows if Guillaume de Villon, his foster-father, has one sou to rub against another? He is canon at Saint Benoit-le-Betourne yonder, but canons are not Midases. The girl will have a hard life of it, neighbor, a hard life, I tell you, if—but, yes!—if Ysabeau de Montigny does not ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... herself in these reassuring words as she stands alone on the ridge in God's great outdoors, she explains that she has promised to marry Jack Belllounds, the worthless son of her foster-father, although any one can tell that she is in love with Wilson Moore, a cow-puncher on the ranch. You will understand what a sacrifice this was to be when the author says that "the lower part of Jack Belllounds's face ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... loved Nero, so did the aristocracy love Marcus Aurelius; his foster-father Antonin excepted, he was the only gentleman that had sat on the throne. No wonder they loved him; and seeing this early edition of the prince in the fairy tale emerge from the bogs of Germany, his fair face haloed by the glisten and gold of his hair, hearts went out to him; ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... All passed distinctly before his mind. He remembered Haschanascha's sorrow at his resolution to remain alone at the hunting-seat; her warning about the talisman; her illness when he no longer possessed it; her life withering away, and her death. Then he thought of the sorrow of her foster-father the King, and how he had again fallen under the dominion of the crafty and deceitful snake-priests. Also the image of his playful companion rose before him, and the merry childish sports in which they had both joined, and in which he had always forgotten ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various

... trained, from the earliest basis, in Norse accomplishments and arts. New children came, one or two; but Olaf, from his mother, seems always to have known that he was the distinguished and royal article there. One day his Foster-father, hurrying to leave home on business, hastily bade Olaf, no other being by, saddle his horse for him. Olaf went out with the saddle, chose the biggest he-goat about, saddled that, and brought it to the door by way of horse. ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... position in life was now on a higher plane, yet his training was no different from that which his own parents would have given him. His new parents worked hand in hand. Daniel soon felt a childish reverence for his foster-father, and toward his foster-mother he showed a trusting love. He grew to be a handsome boy, displaying many splendid talents. He was a diligent scholar and stood highest among his classmates. He did everything in his power to give ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne



Words linked to "Foster-father" :   father surrogate, father figure, foster parent, foster-parent, foster father



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