PATERNITY

[noun] [U]Increasingly, the unmarried father of a child in Europe registers his paternity (= the fact of being the father) at the baby's birth.(figurative) There are a lot of arguments about the paternity (= origin) of this idea.Does your firm give paternity leave (= time a man is allowed away from work when his wife or partner is having a child)?He has recently lost a paternity suit (= legal case in which a woman claims a particular man is the father of her child).He had to take a paternity test to prove he wasn't the child's father.