FATHERLY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does fatherly mean? 

• FATHERLY (adjective)
  The adjective FATHERLY has 1 sense:

1. like or befitting a father or fatherhood; kind and protective

  Familiarity information: FATHERLY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FATHERLY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Like or befitting a father or fatherhood; kind and protective

Synonyms:

fatherlike; fatherly

Similar:

paternal (characteristic of a father)

Derivation:

father (a male parent (also used as a term of address to your father))

fatherliness (the benignity and protectiveness of or befitting a father)

 Context examples 

The fatherly voice broke more than once, which only seemed to make the service more beautiful and solemn.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He had a fatherly, benignant way of showing his fondness for her, which seemed in itself to express a good man.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

At last Judge Blount looked across the table with benignant and fatherly pity.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It disturbed the Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken from the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would have her go to bed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So he put her up at the table, opened the great dictionary she had brought, and gave her a paper and pencil, and she scribbled away, turning a leaf now and then, and passing her little fat finger down the page, as if finding a word, so soberly that I nearly betrayed myself by a laugh, while Mr. Bhaer stood stroking her pretty hair with a fatherly look that made me think she must be his own, though she looked more French than German.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But you have got on bravely, and I think the burdens are in a fair way to tumble off very soon, said Mr. March, looking with fatherly satisfaction at the four young faces gathered round him.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

It was a cheerful, hopeful letter, full of lively descriptions of camp life, marches, and military news, and only at the end did the writer's heart over-flow with fatherly love and longing for the little girls at home.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He was a homely man, but they thought his face quite heavenly when he smiled and said, with a fatherly look at them, Yes, my dears, I think the little girl will pull through this time.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The little girl was very sincere in all this, for being left alone outside the safe home nest, she felt the need of some kind hand to hold by so sorely that she instinctively turned to the strong and tender Friend, whose fatherly love most closely surrounds His little children.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)