padre

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Italian padre, partly Spanish padre and partly Portuguese padre, all meaning "father" and used as a title of priests,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin pater (“father”),^{[2][3][4][7][8]} which in Late Latin was also used of a bishop or abbot.^[9] The OED notes that the Italian word is recorded in the sense "priest" from before 1342, the Spanish one from 1571 or earlier and the Portuguese one from the 16th century.^[2] The Latin word is the cognate of English father.^[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Christian clergyman, especially a Roman Catholic priest, in Italy, Spain, Portugal or the lands under their influence: 1584, in a letter of Fitch's printed in Hakluyt's collection of voyages.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In English the word was first used of priests in Catholic countries, and in Spain, Italy and Spanish America it was the title of the regular clergy.^[4][10] In Purchas it is used throughout for Jesuit missionaries.^[10] Among the British in India it came to mean a priest or minister of any Christian church, a use taken from the Portuguese, who at Goa gave the title even to secular priests;^[11][3] Indians sometimes used it of their own priests when speaking to Europeans.^[11] From this Anglo-Indian use came the colloquial military sense, a chaplain in the armed forces,^[10][3] which the OED records from 1836 in Marryat.^[2] In the 19th century padre was also the name of a black tea grown by priests in China.^[2]

Timeline

• 1584 – a Christian priest in Italy, Spain, Portugal or their colonies.^[2][3]
• 1836 – a chaplain in the armed services, in Marryat's Mr Midshipman Easy.^[2] Barnhart dates this use by British soldiers and sailors to the 1890s.^[3]
• 1836 – a kind of black tea grown by priests in China (obsolete by 1900).^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (informal) A priest or other Christian clergyman, used especially as a title or form of address: Good morning, padre.^[12][9][2]
2. A chaplain in the armed forces.^[12][9][2]
3. A Christian monk, usually one ordained a priest.^[9]

Related words

• father
• paternal
• patron
• pater
• patriarch

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b Yule, Henry; Burnell, A. C. (1903), Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, new ed. by William Crooke, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins