son definition - Dictionary

Dictionary

son [ sun ] (plural sons)

noun

Definition:

1. male child: a male child in relation to his parents

2. male in family: a male descendant

3. male connected with something: a man or boy referred to in terms of his connection with a place, a time in history, or a sphere of interest

the achievements of the sons of the Industrial Revolution

4. animal's young: a male offspring of an animal

5. term of address: an affectionate, or sometimes condescending, way of addressing a boy or man ( informal )

[ Old English sunu< Indo-European, "give birth"]

son·less adjective

son·like adjective

Spelling Note


	son or sun? Do not confuse the spelling of son and sun, which sound similar. A son is "a male child in relation to his parents": They have two daughters and three sons. The sun (in astronomical contexts, Sun) is the star that gives us heat and light: The sun shone all day; observations of the Sun and the stars. The word sun is also used as a verb, as in sunning herself on the patio, and in phrases such as everything under the sun, meaning "things of all kinds."

Cultural Note


	Sons and Lovers, a novel (1913) by British writer D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence's first major novel, and his most autobiographical work, it centers on a family living in a Nottinghamshire coalmining community. Gertrude Morel is frustrated by life with her less refined and increasingly drunken husband and devotes herself to her children, focusing on her son Paul after the death of his brother William. When Paul falls in love, first with a local girl and subsequently with a married woman, he finds it hard to break the bonds of attachment to his mother.