Dad
/dæd/noun
A father; a familiar term used to address or refer to one’s male parent.
Did you know?“Dad” is widely believed to come from nursery speech, and similar father-words built from simple repeated sounds appear in many unrelated languages, showing how baby talk can harden into real vocabulary.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*dʰeh₁-
“to put, place, set”
Old English
English
dæd
“deed, action”
Middle English
English
dadde
“father, papa”
16th–17th Century
English
dadd
“father; a familiar term of address”
Modern English
English
dad
“father”