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Definition of city father
: a member (such as an alderman or councilman) of the governing body of a city
Examples of city father in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web Implicated in this was Peter Faneuil, a city father and namesake of the market, whose vast fortune was made in part from the slave trade.
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Murray Whyte, BostonGlobe.com, "Boston lost a powerful, poetic work when artist pulled his ‘Auction Block’ slave memorial," 17 Aug. 2019 The 19-room inn is set in a grand white Victorian mansion that was a wedding gift in 1882 from city father William Kelley to his daughter Daisy.
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Sharon Boorstin, latimes.com, "Staying in a water tower in Mendocino is a natural high," 30 June 2019 Padberg is talking about the Park River, which winds its way through Hartford, largely underground since city fathers buried it and built I-84 on top of it.
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Susan Dunne, courant.com, "Hartford’s buried Park River is focus of exhibits at Real Art Ways, U of H," 14 June 2019 The building, which occupies a prominent corner on LeJeune Road opposite City Hall, is the last surviving commercial structure from the original business district created by revered city father George Merrick.
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Andres Viglucci, miamiherald, "Famed for protecting historic buildings, this city wants to bulldoze one. For parking.," 29 June 2018 In all, around $500,000 was raised for needy islanders and Coppini was summoned to Galveston to show his artwork to the city fathers.
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Craig Hlavaty, Houston Chronicle, "The story behind a lost statue honoring victims of Galveston's deadly 1900 hurricane," 25 Apr. 2018 In fact, when the Richmond and Sunset districts were being developed from a waste of sand dunes, the city fathers wanted to name the avenues that ran west to the ocean after Spanish saints.
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Carl Nolte, San Francisco Chronicle, "SF custom of naming streets, landmarks has always been complicated," 20 Apr. 2018 The city fathers, however, soon threw caution to the wind.
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The Economist, "The bribe factoryLessons from China’s rust belt," 22 Feb. 2018 In the early stages, the city fathers were skeptical of 9-1-1 calls being answered at the police station.
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Paul Gattis, AL.com, "Piece of Alabama history to be displayed at Smithsonian museum," 16 Feb. 2018
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'city father.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for city father
The first known use of city father was in 1834
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