From Middle English sire, from Old French sire, the nominative singular of seignor; from Latin senior, from senex.

• IPA: /saɪə(ɹ)/

sire (plural sires)

1. A lord, master, or other person in authority, most commonly used vocatively: formerly in speaking to elders and superiors, later only when addressing a sovereign.
2. A male animal that has fathered a particular offspring (especially used of domestic animals and/or in biological research).
3. (obsolete) A father; the head of a family; the husband.
   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene ii], page 154 ↗, column 1:

     He but a Duke, would haue his Sonne a King, / And raiſe his iſſue like a louing Sire.

   • 1807, [Germaine] de Staël Holstein, translated by D[ennis] Lawler, “[Book I. Oswald.] Chapter I.”, in Corinna; or, Italy. […], volume I, London: […] Corri, […]; and sold by Colburn, […], and Mackenzie, […], →OCLC ↗, pages 5–6 ↗:

     Sometimes, also, he reproached himself, for abandoning those abodes where his father had dwelt. “Who knows,” said he to himself, “whether the shades of the departed are allowed to pursue, every where, the objects of their affection? Perhaps it is only permitted them to wander about the spot where their ashes repose! Perhaps in this moment does the spirit of my sire regret the absence of his son, while distance prevents my hearing his voice, exerted to recall me.[”]

4. (obsolete) A creator; a maker; an author; an originator.
   • 1821, Percy B[ysshe] Shelley, Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, […], Pisa, Italy: […] Didot; reprinted London: Noel Douglas […], 1927, →OCLC ↗, stanza IV, page 8 ↗:

     Most musical of mourners, weep again! / Lament anew, Urania!—He died, / Who was the sire of an immortal strain, […]

• German: Herr
• Italian: sire
• Russian: госуда́рь
• Spanish: amo, dueño, señor, seor, ser

• German: Männchen; (of dog) Rüde, (of horse) Hengst, (of cat) Kater, (of rabbit) Rammler
• Italian: stallone, riproduttore, maschio
• Russian: производи́тель
• Spanish: semental apareado

sire (sires, present participle siring; simple past and past participle sired)

1. (transitive, of a male) To father; to beget.
   • 1994, Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London: Abacus, published 2010, page 6:

     In these travels, my father sired thirteen children in all, four boys and nine girls.

• French: saillir
• German: zeugen
• Russian: породить