fatherless

American  

[fah-ther-lis] / ˈfɑ ðər lɪs /

adjective

1. not having a living father.

   a fatherless boy.

2. not having a known or legally responsible father.

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fatherless British  

/ ˈfɑːðəlɪs /

adjective

1. having no father

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Etymology

Origin of fatherless

before 1000; Middle English faderles, Old English fæderlēas. See father, -less

Explanation

Fatherless means without a father. When Claudius killed Hamlet's father, Hamlet became fatherless and obsessed with vengeance. Use the adjective fatherless to describe your orphaned kitten, who has no parents and is therefore both motherless and fatherless. Usually, a fatherless person has lost his or her father to death, although you could also describe a girl raised only by her mother as a fatherless child. The root of fatherless is the similar Old English word fæderleas.

Example Sentences

Seventy percent of teen pregnancies are to girls from fatherless homes.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 2, 2026

Delila Combs, 18, pleaded: "We can't watch our baby sister grow up fatherless the same way we grew up motherless... Please, please give our family the chance to heal."

From BBC • Oct. 3, 2025

That’s why he’d spent years mentoring a fatherless young man to help him find his way in the world.

From Slate • Apr. 27, 2025

Born Sofia Scicolone in Rome in 1934, she grew up fatherless in the Pozzuoli slums during World War II. Loren broke into the movie industry in 1951, at the age of 16.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 25, 2023

Dragging her fatherless child from place to place, scraping by on menial jobs, justifying it by insisting to herself—by insisting to everyone—she was making Art.

From "Little Fires Everywhere" by Celeste Ng