church father
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of church father
First recorded in 1855–60
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This is the common paraphrase of an argument by Tertullian, an early church father.
From Salon • Apr. 5, 2025
They include volumes like a Greek first edition of liturgies of John Chrysostom, an early church father, printed in Rome in 1526.
From New York Times • Jan. 1, 2022
The church father Tertullian insisted that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Roman Catholic Church.
From New York Times • Feb. 16, 2021
The great 4th century church father, St. Augustine, was bishop of Hippo in what is now Tunisia.
From Time Magazine Archive
I intuited that such revelations made Augustine a Protestant church father more than a Catholic father.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
