single father

American  

Informal, single dad

noun

1. a father who brings up a child or children alone, without a partner.

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Etymology

Origin of single father

First recorded in 1965–70

Example Sentences

So being a single father by choice is a rarer phenomenon, and doing so via gestational surrogacy, in which the surrogate mother bears no genetic link to the child she carries, is rarer yet.

From Slate • Feb. 23, 2026

Mel Hazeltine signed on with Los Angeles Surrogacy in October 2023, agreed to carry a child for a Chinese-Canadian single father and delivered a healthy baby girl this March.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 28, 2025

Ted Burkert, a single father of five from Bradford, died in 1992 shortly after suffering a brain bleed.

From BBC • May 6, 2025

He spent 30 years caring for two elderly parents who had serious health issues, while he was also a single father, raising two sons he adopted from a niece.

From Salon • Dec. 26, 2024

If this sounds silly, bear in mind that before the development of modern embryological studies, people had no solid evidence that babies are always sired by a single father rather than by many.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari