mother
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmʌðə/
ipa: /ˈmʌðɚ/
ipa: /ˈmɐðə/
ipa: /ˈmʊðə/
ipa: /ˈmʊðəɹ/
ipa: /ˈmʌðəɹ/
rhymes: -ʌðə(ɹ)
Forms: form: mothers
form: mither
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr
Proto-Germanic *mōdēr
Proto-West Germanic *mōder
Old English mōdor
Middle English moder
English mother
From Middle English moder, from Old English mōdor, from Proto-West Germanic *mōder, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr, from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr. Doublet of Madeira, mata, mater, matrix, and matter.
Some have proposed that the "dregs" sense is from Middle Dutch modder (“filth”), from Proto-Germanic *muþraz (“sediment”), but modder is not known in this meaning. On the other hand, words for "mother" have developed the secondary sense of "dregs" in several Romance and Germanic languages; compare Dutch moer, French mère de vinaigre, German Essigmutter, Italian madre, Medieval Latin māter, and Spanish madre.
Senses: examples: text: I am visiting my mother today.
text: The lioness was a mother of four cubs.
glosses: A female parent, especially of a human; a female who parents a child (which she has given birth to, adopted, or fostered).
examples: text: My sister-in-law has just become a mother for the first time.
text: He had something of his mother in him.
text: He had something of his mother in him, but this was because he realized that in the end only her love was unconditional, and in gratitude he had emulated her.
ref: 1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son:
text: The "Ritual to Celebrate Birthing" begins with a leader welcoming all participants : "Welcome to this celebration for N. She is approaching the time when she will become a mother for the first time (or become a mother again).
ref: 2005, Trudelle Thomas, Spirituality in the Mother Zone: Staying Centered, Finding God, Paulist Press, →ISBN, page 41:
text: In many countries, up to 1 in 5 new mothers experience a mood or anxiety disorder. Unfortunately, these conditions often go undiagnosed and untreated due to lack of awareness and stigma, and everyone pays the price. […] To find out more, I spoke with CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen. Wen, a mother of two young kids, is an emergency physician and adjunct associate professor at the George Washington University.
ref: 2024 May 1, Katia Hetter, “Why is a mother’s mental health so important? A doctor explains”, in CNN:
glosses: A female who has given birth to a baby; this person in relation to her child or children.
examples: text: Nutrients and oxygen obtained by the mother are conveyed to the fetus.
text: The antiabortion iconography in the last decade featured the fetus but never the mother.
ref: 1991, Susan Faludi, The Undeclared War Against American Women:
text: To clone a boy, it is necessary to have a man as a DNA donor, a woman as an egg donor, and may be another woman as a surrogate mother.
ref: 2006, Multiplicity Yours: Cloning, Stem Cell Research, and Regenerative Medicine, →ISBN:
text: If the cat to be cloned is female, the nucleus donor cat could also be used as the surrogate mother instead of another cat.
ref: 2023 January 16, Reinhard Renneberg, Biotechnology for Beginners, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 317:
glosses: A pregnant female; mother-to-be; a female who gestates a baby.
synonyms: biological mother
glosses: A female who donates a fertilized egg or donates a body cell which has resulted in a clone.
examples: text: And Adã called his wyfe Heua⸝ becauſe ſhe was the mother of all that lyveth
ref: 1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Genesis iij:[20], folio iiij, verso:
coordinate_terms: matriarch
glosses: A female ancestor.
examples: text: Near-synonym: matrix
text: The Mediterranean was mother to many cultures and languages.
text: Alas poore Countrey, / Almoſt affraid to know it ſelfe. It cannot / Be call’d our Mother, but our Graue;
ref: c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 147, column 1:
text: But one in the place of God and not God, is as it were a falsehood; it is the mother falsehood from which all idolatry is derived.
ref: 1844, Thomas Arnold, Fragment on the Church, volume 1, page 17:
text: How on earth are we supposed to hold our heads high as the ‘mother of parliaments’ when we allow to continue the practice of almost openly buying a seat in parliament?
ref: 2013 October 31, Rowena Mason, quoting David Steel, “Lord Steel criticises culture of spin and tweeting in modern politics”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
glosses: A source or origin.
examples: Near-synonym: Big One
1991, January 17, Saddam Hussein, Broadcast on Baghdad state radio.
The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.
glosses: Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind. (See mother of all.)
examples: text: Mother Smith, meet my cousin, Doug Jones.
qualifier: when followed by a surname
glosses: A title of respect for one's mother-in-law.
examples: text: A few minutes later we were all seated comfortably, Uncle Dave and mother, as he called his wife, myself and my husband, in the split-bottomed wooden chairs, on the vine-covered porch. / “Is Bethel a Methodist Church?” I asked. / Uncle Dave looked quizzically at his wife. “Do you hear that, mother?” he said.
ref: 1887 April 2, E. V. Wilson, “Uncle Dave”, in The Current, volume 7, number 172, page 432:
text: On some days as he got near the house he would call out to his wife: / “Almighty Moses, Martha! who left the sprinkler on the grass?” / On other days he would call to her from quite a little distance off: “Hullo, mother! Got any supper for a hungry man?”
ref: 1922, Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, page 152:
text: (Mr. Hill enters. He crosses to Wife.) / Mr. Hill: Hello, mother. […] How are you? / Mrs. Hill: Nothing wrong, dear, I hope.
ref: 1944, Walter Hackett, For the Duration: A Play for Junior and Senior High Schools, page 8:
glosses: A term of address for one's wife.
examples: Near-synonyms: matron, matriarch
glosses: Any elderly woman, especially within a particular community.
examples: Judges 5:7, KJV.
The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.
Galatians 4:26, KJV.
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
hypernyms: parent
glosses: Any person or entity which performs mothering.
examples: text: pieces of mother ;   adding mother to vinegar
glosses: Dregs, lees; a stringy, mucilaginous or film- or membrane-like substance (consisting of a culture of acetobacters) which develops in fermenting alcoholic liquids (such as wine, or cider), and turns the alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen from the air.
topics: rail-transport
railways
transport
glosses: A locomotive which provides electrical power for a slug.
glosses: The principal piece of an astrolabe, into which the others are fixed.
glosses: The female superior or head of a religious house; an abbess, etc.
examples: text: O how this mother ſwels vp toward my hart[…]
ref: c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:
text: T.V. dicusseth tumors and mollifieth them, helps inflammations, rising of the mother and the epilepsie being burnt.
ref: 1665, Robert Lovel, Pambotanologia sive Enchiridion botanicum, page 484:
text: The Root hereof taken with Zedoary and Angelică, or without them, helps the rising of the Mother.
ref: 1666, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physitian Enlarged, page 49:
text: St Botolph's parish records ascribed three deaths to 'mother', an old name for the uterus.
ref: 1979, Thomas R. Forbes, “The changing face of death in London”, in Charles Webster, editor, Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century, published 1979, page 128:
glosses: Hysterical passion; hysteria; the uterus.
hypernyms: master copy
glosses: A disc produced from the electrotyped master, used in manufacturing phonograph records.
qualifier: Stan Twitter
glosses: A person who is admired, respected, or looked up to within a particular fandom or community; see also: serve cunt
Synonyms: sense: most significant thing
word: father
sense: most significant thing
word: grandfather
sense: most significant thing
word: granddaddy
sense: of or pertaining to the mother, such as metropolis
word: metro-
word: dam
word: mater
word: matriarch
word: mother
word: Mother
word: Colloquial or slang synonyms:
word: ma
word: mam
word: mama
word: mamaw
word: mamma
word: mammaw
word: mammy
word: mamsie
word: mamsy
word: meemaw
word: memaw
word: mom
word: Mom
word: moms
word: momma
word: mommy
word: Mommy
word: momsy
word: motherling
word: mum
word: Mum
word: mummy
word: Mummy
word: mumsy
word: mutha
word: old lady
Hypernyms: sense: a female parent
word: parent
word: foster
word: guardian
word: relative
word: woman
Hyponyms: word: birth mother
word: genitrix
word: genitor
word: adoptive mother
word: grandmother
word: gymslip mum
word: helicopter mom
word: mama bear
word: mama grizzly
word: security mom
word: soccer mom
word: supermom
word: supermum
word: surrogate mother
word: tiger mother
word: Mother-in-law:
word: mother-in-law
word: ma-in-law
word: mom-in-law
word: mother-out-law
word: mum-in-law
word: shviger
word: Stepmother:
word: stepmother
word: stepma
word: stepmam
word: stepmama
word: stepmamma
word: stepmom
word: stepmomma
word: stepmommy
word: stepmum
word: stepmummy
Coordinate terms: sense: a female parent
word: father
Derived terms: adoptive mother
allomother
and his mother
antimother
baby mother
babymother
beemother
bee mother
be mother
biomother
birth mother
birthmother
bonus mother
brother from another mother
bunny mother
camp mother
co-mother
co-mother-in-law
corn mother
cow-mother
den mother
do you kiss your mother with that mouth
drag mother
earth mother
eldermother
eldmother
everybody and his mother
everybody and their mother
everyone and his mother
everyone and their mother
face only a mother could love
face that only a mother could love
foremother
foster mother
founding mother
fuck your mother
godmother
go fuck your mother
gold star mother
go tell your mother she wants you
grandmother
great-grandmother
holy mother of based
housemother
kangaroo mother care
like a mother hawk
manther
megaspore mother cell
mermother
milf
milk mother
milk-mother
mismother
mother abscess
mother and baby unit
mother-bird
motherboard
mother bomb
mother cell
Mother Christmas
motherchucker
mother church
Mother City
mother city
mother country
mothercraft
motherdom
mother dough
Mother Earth
motherer
motherese
motherfather
mother figure
motherfouler
mother-fucker
motherfucker
mother fucker
motherfucking
motherful
mother goddess
mother-hen
mother hen
mother heroine
mother-hive
mother hive
motherhood
motherhouse
motherhumper
Mothering Sunday
mother-in-law
mother-in-law apartment
mother-in-law sandwich
mother-in-law seat
mother-in-law's tongue
mother-in-law style
motherish
motherism
motherist
motherkin
motherkins
motherland
mother language
motherless
motherlike
motherline
motherling
mother liquor
motherload
mother lode
mother-lode
motherlove
motherlover
motherloving
motherly
mother may I
motherment
Mother Monster
mother-naked
mother naked
motherness
mother of all
mother of chapel
mother of coal
mother of millions
mother-of-pearl
mother of pearl
mother-of-pearl cloud
mother of Satan
Mother of Sorrows
mother of the nation
mother of thousands
mother-of-thyme
mother of vinegar
mother-out-law
mother plant
Mother Russia
mother sauce
mother sauces
Mother's Day
mother ship
mother's milk
mothersome
mother-spot
mother superior
mother-to-be
mother-tongue
mother tongue
mother up
motherward
mother wit
mother-wit
mother world
motherwort
mothery
my very educated mother just served us nachos
my very educated mother just served us nine pizzas
my very educated mother just served us nine pumpkins
my very educated mother just served us noodles
my very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas
necessity is the mother of innovation
necessity is the mother of invention
nonmother
only a mother could love
othermother
overmother
queen mother
refrigerator mother
she's the cat's mother
single mother
Sorrowful Mother
stage mother
stepmother
step-mother
surrogate mother
sweet Mary mother of God
sweet mother of God
sweet mother of Jesus
sweet mother of Moses
sweet mother of pearl
tiger mother
unmother
welfare mother
wolf-mother
you kiss your mother with that mouth
your mother
Related terms: sense: Etymologically related
word: material
sense: Etymologically related
word: maternal
sense: Etymologically related
word: maternity
sense: Etymologically related
word: matriculate
sense: Etymologically related
word: matrimony
sense: Etymologically related
word: matrix
sense: Etymologically related
word: matter
word: materfamilias