All-Father en · NOUN
Etymology
Calque of Old Norse Alfǫðr.
Meanings
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A supreme being; a god who rules over all others.
At a primitive stage this is sometimes (e.g. with the Australians) scarcely regarded as communion with a specific divinity or divinities, yet the All-Fathers and the mythical beings fill an important rôle in these rites, while at a more developed stage the rites have a close connexion with chthonic or heavenly powers.
1913, James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, page 737:Our first lesson is that God is a Father ; the second, that He is an All-Father ; that His Fatherhood is a fact in which others, without any limit perceptible to us, have an equal share with ourselves.
1891, Philip Hankinson Newnham, The All-father: Sermons Preached in a Village Church, page 27:The Arunta totemic system could not coexist with an All-Father.
2010, Harold W. Montzka, The Separation of Heaven and Earth:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allfather | alternative | lexicographic | |
| All-Fathers | Number=Plur | lexicographic |