Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Godfather |
GodfatherNoun1. Any man who serves as a sponsor for a child at baptism. 2. Someone having a relation analogous to that of a male sponsor to his godchild. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "godfather" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Godfather To stand godfather. To pay the reckoning, godfathers being generally chosen for the sake of the present they are expected to make the child at the christening or in their wills. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Slang in 1811 | GODFATHER. He who pays the reckoning, or answers for the rest of thecompany: as, Will you stand godfather, and we will take care of the brat; i.e. repay you another time. Jurymen are also called godfathers, because they name the crime the prisoner before. Source: 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A Godparent is a person who is legally intrusted to look after a child in the case that both his legal parents should die.A male Godparent is a Godfather and a female Godparent is a Godmother.
A Godparent may be related to the child, such as an uncle or an aunt, or may simply be a friend of the family.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Godparent."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The Godfather (ISBN 0399103422) is a novel written by Mario Puzo about a fictitious Italian Mafia family.
The Godfather (in Italian Il Padrino) is a term used to identify the boss of a Mafia clan, the eldest or the most representative member of a family. (See godparent for the origins of the term.) In the novel, this character was Don Vito Corleone, whose surname recalls the town of Corleone, Sicily, where traditionally the Mafia had a similar organisation into "families". Similarly, the surname of Don Vito's mother is Corigliano, coming from the town of Corigliano Calabro, Calabria, this too sadly remembered for ndrangheta matters.
(warning:Wikipedia contains spoilers)
The motion picture adaptation of The Godfather (1971) was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola had directed several films prior to this, but none of them had significant impact on the public. The movie was an enormous box-office hit, smashing previous records to become the highest-grossing film of all time (until that record was surpassed by Jaws in 1975, and a number of other movies afterwards).
The role of Don Vito Corleone was memorably acted by Marlon Brando, and Brando won an Academy Award for his portrayal of the ageing Don. Many of the actors playing the supporting roles were largely unknown or minor actors; however, they rocketed into the limelight with the success of The Godfather. In particular, Al Pacino and Robert Duvall enjoy long, successful, highly acclaimed careers.
Since its release, The Godfather has been accused of glorifying the image of the Mafia, although this word is never spoken in the film, or written in the book. Don Corleone, as played by Brando, was seen as the sort of gang leader who people could actually respect (though The Godfather Part II worked to tear down this image).
The opening scene is one of the most famous portraits of the Mafia. The dialogue between Corleone and Bonasera ("I believe in America") points out the importance of the Mafia being based on family hierarchies. Only after accepting the Godfather as head of the system (Brando demands the kiss of his hand) and Bonaseras integration in the family (he must call him "Godfather"), he can hope for support for his problem (being a family-problem itself).
The decisions for the violent and illegal acts are taken in a dark, brownish colored office, symbolizing a secure, cozy and calm atmosphere. This is contrasted by the bright, loud and hectic wedding, which is celebrated parallel outside the house. This can be understood as the glorification of the positive framework the Mafia creates by playing down crime and violence at the same time.
One of the movie's most shocking moments comes early in the film, involving the decapitated head of a horse. Animal-rights groups protested the inclusion of the scene, though Coppola stated that the horse's head was delivered to him from a dog food company; a horse had not been killed especially for the movie.
Another scene, one of the last scenes in the movie, has Don Corleones son, Michael Corleone, attending the baptism of his sister's newborn baby as his henchmen kill his enemies, as ordered by Michael, and after the death of Vito Corleone. After this, Michael Corleone is appointed as the new Don.
After the release of The Godfather Part II, Coppola re-edited the two movies together into one long saga for TV broadcast, entitled The Godfather Saga.
Both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
The filmed sequels to this movie are:
- The Godfather Part II
- The Godfather Part III
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "The Godfather."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Security | Sponsor, cosponsor, sponsion, sponsorship; surety, bail; mainpernor, hostage; godchild, godfather, godmother. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Godfather |
| English words defined with "godfather": Compaternity ♦ Susceptor. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "godfather": Little-Endians ♦ Una Serranilla. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "godfather": gaffer. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Jack, I'm asking you to be my kid's godfather. Or rather, his fairy godfather (Will & Grace; writing credit: Evan Weinstein) Oh, Godfather, what am I gonna do (The Godfather; writing credit: Francis Ford Coppola; Mario Puzo) They seen The Godfather, right (The Sopranos; writing credit: Isabel Clara-Simo; Ramón De España) The Godfather is showing all over Nice, and it's killing the other movies (Nuit américaine, La; writing credit: Jean-Louis Richard; Suzanne Schiffman) It's from The Godfather. (You've Got Mail; writing credit: Nora Ephron) | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Black Godfather (1974) Godfather (1992) The Godfather Family: A Look Inside (1991) Hong Kong Godfather (1985) Disco Godfather (1979) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
 |
| "KO 11" by Lucien Aréstegüi Commentary: "KOMMON OBJEKT 11 The Godfather." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| "Godfather" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Godfather" is used about 185 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 185 | 22,646 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "godfather": be godfather ♦ stand as smb.'s godfather. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "godfather": godfather-like. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day | Expression | Frequency per Day |
godfather | 1,894 | composer godfather | 24 |
customs godfather | 192 | godfather dvd collection | 21 |
godfather wallpaper | 98 | godfather 3 | 21 |
godfather movie | 96 | godfather music | 20 |
godfather picture | 93 | godfather screensaver | 20 |
godfather quote | 93 | godfather script | 19 |
godfather shire | 54 | godfather photo | 19 |
godfather dvd | 49 | godfather mp3 | 16 |
godfather theme | 44 | godfather midi | 16 |
cast godfather | 44 | godfather part ii | 15 |
godfather pic | 40 | godfather part 3 | 15 |
godfather trilogy | 38 | godfather trivia | 15 |
godfather pizza | 33 | duvall godfather | 15 |
godfather ringtone | 30 | godfather iii | 14 |
composer godfather nino | 30 | al pacino godfather | 14 |
godfather ii | 29 | poem about godfather | 14 |
godfather 2 | 29 | font godfather | 14 |
godfather soundtrack | 29 | the godfather theme song | 13 |
godfather poster | 28 | 4 godfather | 12 |
the godfather part 2 | 27 | godfather wav | 12 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Translations for "godfather"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | nun (best man, bridesman). (various references) | |
Arabic | كفل ولدا فى العماد, العراب (sponsor), أب أو أم بالمعمودية (godmother), أب بالعماد. (various references) | |
Aymara | ichutata. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | кръстник (godparent, gossip), кръщавам (baptize, christen, dub, name). (various references) | |
Chinese | 教父 . (various references) | |
Czech | kmotr (sponsor). (various references) | |
Dutch | peter, peetvader, peet, naamgever. (various references) | |
Esperanto | baptopatro. (various references) | |
Farsi | پدرتعمیدی , نام گذاردن بر, سرپرستی کردن از. (various references) | |
Finnish | kummi (godmother, sponsor). (various references) | |
French | parrain. (various references) | |
German | pate (godparent, sponsor), Taufpate. (various references) | |
Greek | νονόσ, νονός, ανάδοχοσ (concessionaire, godmother, godparent, sponsor). (various references) | |
Hebrew | סנדק (godparent, sandak, sponsor). (various references) | |
Hungarian | keresztapa (sponsor). (various references) | |
Indonesian | ayah baptis. (various references) | |
Italian | padrino (sponsor). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 教父 , 代父 , ゴシック建築 (Gobelins, goblet, goblin, god, Goddard, Godzilla, gospel, gospel song, gossip, gossip maker, gothic, Gothic architecture, State Bank, State Plan, thud). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | きょうふ (be afraid, dismay, dread, terror), ゴッドファーザー , だいふ (father). (various references) | |
Korean | 대부 (loan). (various references) | |
Manx | goshtiu, gedjey (foster-father, godparent, guardian, sponsor), ayr bashtee (godparent). (various references) | |
Norwegian | gudfar. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | odfathergay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | padrinho (candle-holder, second, sponsor). (various references) | |
Romanian | naş (godparent, sponsor), boteza (baptize, call, christen, christianize, dip, doctor, immerse, name, sprinkle, surname, water, wet). (various references) | |
Russian | крестный отец (godparent). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | kumov, kum (best man, bridesman, first man). (various references) | |
Spanish | apadrinar. (various references) | |
Swedish | fadder (godmother, godparent, sponsor). (various references) | |
Tagalog | nínong. (various references) | |
Thai | พ่ออุปถัมภ์. (various references) | |
Turkish | vaftiz babası (sponsor), manevi baba, mafya babası. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | хрещений батько (god-parent), бути хрещеним батьком. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "godfather": godfathered, godfathering, godfathers. (additional references) | |
| |
"Godfather" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: gilfeather. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "godfather" (pronounced gÄ"dfÄ'ther) |
| 5 | -d f Ä' th er | grandfather. |
| 4 | -f Ä' th er | forefather, stepfather. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-e-f-g-h-o-r-t" | |
-1 letter: goatherd. | |
-2 letters: fagoted, fagoter, foraged, frothed, garoted, grafted, hagrode. | |
-3 letters: dafter, dearth, dehort, dogear, dotage, father, fedora, forage, forgat, forged, forget, garote, gather, gherao, grated, hafted, hafter, hatred, orated, orgeat, rafted, thread, togaed, trefah. | |
-4 letters: adore, afore, after, argot, dater, death, defat, defog, derat, doeth, doter, draft, earth, ergot, fader, fadge, fagot, fared, fated. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-d-e-f-g-h-o-r-t" | |
+1 letter: godfathers. | |
+2 letters: forgathered, godfathered. | |
+3 letters: foregathered, godfathering. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Digital Art 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Derivations 11. Rhymes 12. Anagrams | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
