Both Uses of
paternal
in
Moby Dick
- But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race.†
Chpt 127-129
- Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's—wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age!†
Chpt 130-132 *
Definition:
-
(paternal as in: paternal attitude) kindness and concern like that of a father -- sometimes implying that it is overly intrusive