mother

plural mothers · alternative Northern England Scotland mither

1. A female parent, especially of a human; a female who parents a child (which she has given birth to, adopted, fostered, etc).

   I am visiting my mother any moment.

   5 more examples

   The lioness was a mother of four cubs.

   My sister-in-law has just become a mother for the first time.

   He had something of his mother in him.

   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.

   1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son

   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).

   2005, Trudelle Thomas, Spirituality in the Mother Zone: Staying Centered, Finding God, Paulist Press, →ISBN, page 41

2. A pregnant female; mother-to-be; a female who gestates a baby.

   Nutrients and oxygen obtained by the mother are conveyed to the fetus.

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   The antiabortion iconography in the last decade featured the fetus but never the mother.

   1991, Susan Faludi, The Undeclared War Against American Women

   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.

   2006, Multiplicity Yours: Cloning, Stem Cell Research, and Regenerative Medicine, →ISBN

   If the cat to be cloned is female, the nucleus donor cat could also be used as the surrogate mother instead of another cat.

   2023 January 16, Reinhard Renneberg, Biotechnology for Beginners, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 317

3. A female who donates a fertilized egg or donates a body cell which has resulted in a clone.

   Synonyms: biological mother

4. figurativelyA female ancestor.

   And Adã called his wyfe Heua⸝ becauſe ſhe was the mother of all that lyveth

   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

5. figurativelyA source or origin.

   Near-synonym: matrix

   4 more examples

   The Mediterranean was mother to many cultures and languages.

   Alas poore Countrey, / Almoſt affraid to know it ſelfe. It cannot / Be call’d our Mother, but our Graue;

   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

   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.

   1844, Thomas Arnold, Fragment on the Church, volume 1, page 17

   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?

   2013 October 31, Rowena Mason, quoting David Steel, “Lord Steel criticises culture of spin and tweeting in modern politics”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: matrix

6. Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind. (See mother of all.)

   Near-synonym: Big One

   1 more example

   1991, January 17, Saddam Hussein, Broadcast on Baghdad state radio. The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.

   Synonyms: Big One, father, grandfather, granddaddy

7. datedwhen followed by a surnameA title of respect for one's mother-in-law.

   Mother Smith, meet my cousin, Doug Jones.

8. datedA term of address for one's wife.

   (Mr. Hill enters. He crosses to Wife.) / Mr. Hill: Hello, mother. […] How are you? / Mrs. Hill: Nothing wrong, dear, I hope.

   1944, Walter Hackett, For the Duration: A Play for Junior and Senior High Schools, page 8

   2 more examples

   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.

   1887 April 2, E. V. Wilson, “Uncle Dave”, in The Current, volume 7, number 172, page 432

   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?”

   1922, Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, page 152

9. figurativelyAny elderly woman, especially within a particular community.

   Near-synonyms: matron, matriarch

   Synonyms: matron, matriarch

10. figurativelyAny person or entity which performs mothering.

    Galatians 4:26, KJV. Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

    1 more example

    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.

11. 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.

    pieces of mother ;   adding mother to vinegar

12. rail transportA locomotive which provides electrical power for a slug.
13. The principal piece of an astrolabe, into which the others are fixed.
14. The female superior or head of a religious house; an abbess, etc.
15. obsoleteHysterical passion; hysteria; the uterus.

    O how this mother ſwels vp toward my hart[…]

    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]

    3 more examples

    T.V. dicusseth tumors and mollifieth them, helps inflammations, rising of the mother and the epilepsie being burnt.

    1665, Robert Lovel, Pambotanologia sive Enchiridion botanicum, page 484

    The Root hereof taken with Zedoary and Angelică, or without them, helps the rising of the Mother.

    1666, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physitian Enlarged, page 49

    St Botolph's parish records ascribed three deaths to 'mother', an old name for the uterus.

    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

    Synonyms: metro-

16. A disc produced from the electrotyped master, used in manufacturing phonograph records.
17. Stan TwitterA person who is admired, respected, or looked up to within a particular fandom or community; see also: serve cunt

present singular third person mothers · participle present mothering · participle past mothered · past mothered

1. transitiveTo give birth to or produce (as its female parent) a child. (Compare father.)

   Q's sister, Debbie, had mothered two kids by the time she was twenty, with neither of the fathers in sight.

   1998, Nina Revoyr, The Necessary Hunger: A Novel, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 101

   1 more example

   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.

   2010, Lynette Joseph-Bani, The Biblical Journey of Slavery: From Egypt to the Americas, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 51

2. transitiveTo treat as a mother would be expected to treat her child; to nurture.

   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.

   c. 1900, O. Henry, An Adjustment of Nature

3. transitiveTo cause to contain mother (“that substance which develops in fermenting alcohol and turns it into vinegar”).

   mothered oil, mothered vinegar, mothered wine

4. intransitiveTo develop mother.

   Iron rusted, paper cracked, cream soured and vinegar mothered.

   1968, Evelyn Berckman, The Heir of Starvelings, page 172

   1 more example

   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.

   2013, Richard Dauenhauer, Benchmarks: New and Selected Poems 1963-2013, page 94

plural mothers · alternative mutha

1. euphemisticmildlyslangvulgarMotherfucker.

   Who run this mother

   2011, Beyoncé Knowles, “Run the World (Girls)”, in 4

   2 more examples

   (Burn, baby, burn) Disco inferno / (Burn, baby, burn) Burn the mother down

   1976, Leroy Green, Ron "Have Mercy" Kersey, “Disco Inferno”, in Disco Inferno, performed by The Trammps, track 4

   Stick a votive candle in it and fire that mother up, right?

   1989 December 19, Slim Randles, “Entrepreneur Hopes Luminaria Delivery Service Catches On”, in The Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico, page 2

2. colloquialeuphemisticA striking example. (Appears as "mother of a(n) __".)

   Basically, we wind up with a program. One mother of a complex application.

   2004 Nov, Rajnar Vajra, “The Ghost Within”, in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, volume 124, number 11, page 8

   3 more examples

   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.

   1964, Richard L. Newhafer, The last tallyho

   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.

   1980, Chester Anderson, Fox & hare: the story of a Friday night, page 5

   Josh, whose fleshy face resembles a rhino's - beady wide-set eyes blinking between a mother of a snout

   2006, Elizabeth Robinson, The true and outstanding adventures of the Hunt sisters

plural mothers

1. alternativeAlternative form of moth-er.

   Often used in jest to describe rare or special moths one has seen in one’s trap, perhaps repeatedly, of which one knows for sure fellow mothers will be envious.

   2024 September 17, “Mothing Glossary”, in David Bradley's Sciencebase

1. datedOne's mother.

   Synonyms: Mom, Mum, Mummy, Goddess

2. WiccaOne of the triune goddesses of the Lady in Wicca alongside the Crone and Maiden and representing a woman older than a girlish Maiden but younger than an aged Crone.

   The Lady is often thought of as having three aspects: Maiden, Mother, and Crone.

   2004, Aurora Greenbough, Cathy Jewell, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Spells and Spellcraft, page 9

   1 more example

   ...different stages of life as represented by our Lady as Maiden, Mother, and Crone, as well as our Lord as Master, Father, and Sage.

   2002, A.J. Drew, Wicca for Couples: Making Magick Together, page 90

plural Mothers

1. A title given to a nun or a priestess.

   Mother Teresa Gertrude O’Sullivan, then Provincial, did not give higher education for Loreto nuns the same priority as had Mothers Gonzaga and Stanislaus.

   2009, Mary Ryllis Clark, Loreto in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, →ISBN, page 129

2. A title given to the personification of a force of nature or abstract concept, such as Mother Nature, Mother Russia, or Mother Earth.