the.com/father figure

means An older person who provides the guidance, protection, or emotional steadiness typically associated with a father, without holding that biological title.

from A straightforward 20th-century compound, not a word with a buried myth — 'father' (ancient, from the Indo-European root 'pater') plus 'figure' in its sense of 'a person regarded in a particular role,' a usage that grew out of 'figure' meaning 'a person as perceived or represented,' itself from Latin 'figura,' shape. The phrase simply names the shape someone fills when the role is real but the lineage isn't.