Alloparent

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An adult animal or person involved in parent-like behaviour towards an individual that is not his or her offspring.

    "And Hrdy further suggests that the immersion of human babies in a pool of alloparents would have honed the mind-reading skills and empathy that are so important to our species, faster than anything else."

Example

More examples

"And Hrdy further suggests that the immersion of human babies in a pool of alloparents would have honed the mind-reading skills and empathy that are so important to our species, faster than anything else."

Etymology

From allo- + parent.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.