ghostly father

== English == === Noun === ghostly father (plural ghostly fathers) (obsolete, Roman Catholicism) confessor (priest who hears one’s confessions) c. 1415-1440 (date written), Charles, Duke of Orléans, reproduced by E. K. Chambers, Early English Lyrics: Amorous, Divine, Moral and Trivial (1907), p. 31: My ghostly fader, I me confesse, First to God and then to you,That at a window,—wot ye how?— I stale a cosse of grete sweteness. === References === Marshall, Peter (2017), Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation, Yale University Press, →ISBN, page 8: “‘ghostly father’ (a common name for the priest-confessor)”