There are several ways in which the gender or meaning of the occurrences of parens is indicated. The most obvious indication is that afforded by a modifier, as in Cicero, Planc. 42.102: simul hic miserrimus et optimus obtestatur parens. Here the adjectives miserrimus and optimus definitely show that parens is masculine. Another example is Terence, Heaut. 1027: quod peto aut quod volo, parentes meos ut commonstres mihi. In this, meos limits parentes to the meaning ‘father and mother’. An examination of passages of this sort never suggests the meaning ‘father and grandfather’, or any similar interpretation. When noster, vester, or suns modifies the singular of parens it indicates by its gender whether a father or a mother is referred to, as in Caesar, BC 1.74.6: filius adulescens de sua ac parentis sui salute cum Caesare per Sulpicium legatum agebat. The meaning of the plural of parens, however, is not indicated by noster, vester, or suns; nostris does not reveal the meaning of parentibus in Cicero, Fam. 6.16.1 (Bithynicus Ciceroni): si mihi tecum non et multae et iustae causae amicitiae privatim essent, repeterem initia amicitiae ex parentibus nostris...