mother - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Proto-West Germanic *mōder

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.[1]

mother (plural mothers)

  1. A female parent, especially of a human; a female who parents a child (which she has given birth to, adopted, or fostered).
    Hyponym: matron
    I am visiting my mother today.
    The lioness was a mother of four cubs.
  2. A female who has given birth to a baby; this person in relation to her child or children.
    Hyponym: matron
    My sister-in-law has just become a mother for the first time.
    He had something of his mother in him.
    • 1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son:
      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.
    • 2005, Trudelle Thomas, Spirituality in the Mother Zone: Staying Centered, Finding God, Paulist Press, →ISBN, page 41:
      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).
    • 2024 May 1, Katia Hetter, “Why is a mother’s mental health so important? A doctor explains”, in CNN‎[1]:
      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.
  3. A pregnant female; mother-to-be; a female who gestates a baby.
    Nutrients and oxygen obtained by the mother are conveyed to the fetus.
    • 1991, Susan Faludi, The Undeclared War Against American Women:
      The antiabortion iconography in the last decade featured the fetus but never the mother.
    • 2006, Multiplicity Yours: Cloning, Stem Cell Research, and Regenerative Medicine, →ISBN:
      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.
    • 2023 January 16, Reinhard Renneberg, Biotechnology for Beginners, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 317:
      If the cat to be cloned is female, the nucleus donor cat could also be used as the surrogate mother instead of another cat.
  4. A female who donates a fertilized egg or donates a body cell which has resulted in a clone.
    Synonym: biological mother
  5. (figuratively) A female ancestor.
    Coordinate term: matriarch
  6. (figuratively) A source or origin.
    Near-synonym: matrix
    The Mediterranean was mother to many cultures and languages.
    • 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:
      Alas poore Countrey, / Almoſt affraid to know it ſelfe. It cannot / Be call’d our Mother, but our Graue;
    • 1844, Thomas Arnold, Fragment on the Church, volume 1, page 17:
      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.
    • 2013 October 31, Rowena Mason, quoting David Steel, “Lord Steel criticises culture of spin and tweeting in modern politics”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      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?
  7. Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind. (See mother of all.)
    Near-synonym: Big One
    • 1991, January 17, Saddam Hussein, Broadcast on Baghdad state radio.
      The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.
  8. (dated, when followed by a surname) A title of respect for one's mother-in-law.
    Mother Smith, meet my cousin, Doug Jones.
  9. (dated) A term of address for one's wife.
    • 1887 April 2, E. V. Wilson, “Uncle Dave”, in The Current, volume 7, number 172, page 432:
      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.
    • 1922, Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town‎[3], page 152:
      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?”
    • 1944, Walter Hackett, For the Duration: A Play for Junior and Senior High Schools, page 8:
      (Mr. Hill enters. He crosses to Wife.) / Mr. Hill: Hello, mother. […] How are you? / Mrs. Hill: Nothing wrong, dear, I hope.
  10. (figuratively) Any elderly woman, especially within a particular community.
    Near-synonyms: matron, matriarch
  11. (figuratively) Any person or entity which performs mothering.
    Hypernym: parent
    Hyponym: surrogate mother
  1. 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.
    Hyponyms: mother of vinegar; starter
    pieces of mother ; adding mother to vinegar
  2. (rail transport) A locomotive which provides electrical power for a slug.
  3. The principal piece of an astrolabe, into which the others are fixed.
  4. The female superior or head of a religious house; an abbess, etc.
  5. (obsolete) Hysterical passion; hysteria; the uterus.
  1. A disc produced from the electrotyped master, used in manufacturing phonograph records.
    Hypernym: master copy
  2. (Stan Twitter, originally drag slang) A person who is admired, respected, or looked up to within a particular fandom or community; see also: serve cunt

From Middle English modren, from the noun (see above).

mother (third-person singular simple present mothers, present participle mothering, simple past and past participle mothered)

  1. (chiefly transitive) To give birth to or produce (as its female parent) a child. (Compare father.)
    • 1998, Nina Revoyr, The Necessary Hunger: A Novel, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 101:
      Q's sister, Debbie, had mothered two kids by the time she was twenty, with neither of the fathers in sight.
    • 2010, Lynette Joseph-Bani, The Biblical Journey of Slavery: From Egypt to the Americas, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 51:
      Zilpah, Leah's maid, mothered two sons for Jacob, Gad and Asher. Leah became pregnant once more and had two more sons, Issachar, and Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah, thus Leah had seven children for Jacob.
  2. (transitive) To treat as a mother would be expected to treat her child; to nurture.
    • c. 1900, O. Henry, An Adjustment of Nature:
      She had seen fewer years than any of us, but she was of such superb Evehood and simplicity that she mothered us from the beginning.
  3. (transitive) To cause to contain mother (“that substance which develops in fermenting alcohol and turns it into vinegar”).
    mothered oil, mothered vinegar, mothered wine
  4. (intransitive, of an alcohol) To develop mother.
    • 1968, Evelyn Berckman, The Heir of Starvelings, page 172:
      Iron rusted, paper cracked, cream soured and vinegar mothered.
    • 2013, Richard Dauenhauer, Benchmarks: New and Selected Poems 1963-2013, page 94:
      Your lamp
      was always polished, wick
      trimmed, waiting; yet the bridegroom
      somehow never came. Summer dust
      settled in the vineyard. Grapes
      were harvested; your parents
      crushed and pressed them, but the wine
      mothered.

to treat as a mother would be expected to

Clipping of motherfucker.

mother (plural mothers)

  1. (euphemistic, mildly vulgar, slang) Motherfucker.
  2. (euphemistic, colloquial) A striking example. (Appears as "mother of a(n) __".)
    • 1964, Richard L. Newhafer, The last tallyho:
      November, 1943 If ever, Cortney Anders promised himself, I get out of this mother of a thunderstorm there is a thing I will do if it is the last act of my life.
    • 1980, Chester Anderson, Fox & hare: the story of a Friday night, page 5:
      Some hot night there's gonna be one mother of a riot down here. Just wait." He'd been saying the same thing since 1958, five years of crying wolf.
    • 2004 Nov, Rajnar Vajra, “The Ghost Within”, in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, volume 124, number 11, page 8:
      Basically, we wind up with a program. One mother of a complex application.
    • 2006, Elizabeth Robinson, The true and outstanding adventures of the Hunt sisters:
      Josh, whose fleshy face resembles a rhino's - beady wide-set eyes blinking between a mother of a snout

Coined from moth by analogy to mouser.

mother (plural mothers)

  1. Alternative form of moth-er.

  2. ^ “mother, _n._2”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2022.

mother

  1. (Late Middle English) alternative form of moder

mother

  1. alternative form of mither