papa

   A word for father which was introduced into English from French in the seventeenth century and used by polite society. The word was considered genteel, though adults left the word more and more to children as time passed.

   It still suggests usage by middle-class rather than working-class families, but is by no means as frequently used as it was until the nineteenth century. Dickens was at his comic best in Little Dorrit when he described the advice given to Amy by the aristocratic widow, Mrs General: ‘I think, father, I require a little time.’

   ‘Papa is a preferable mode of address,’ observed Mrs General. ‘Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips, especially prunes and prism.’

   As a result of this, Dickens tells us, Amy ‘very nearly’ addresses her father ‘as poultry, if not prunes and prism too, in her desire to submit herself to Mrs General and please him’. In The Moonflower Vine, by Jetta Carleton, a wife uses ‘Papa’ to her husband. The couple have many children who use this form of address. The term is also used in the USA in a similar way to ‘Daddy’, addressed to a man who is unrelated to the speaker. Men would use it to an older man; women might use it to a lover.

   The word is most frequently used alone, though expressions like ‘my dear Papa’ occur. In William Thackeray’s The Newcomes a child uses the exclamatory ‘you dear kind Papa’ to his father. ‘Papa’ + last name and ‘Mama’ + last name occur in Little Dorrit, used by Mrs Gowan to the Meagles. The latter couple are the parents of her daughter-in-law.