Meanings
- UKThe fourth Sunday of Lent, three Sundays before Easter, now especially as a day to honor one's mother.
Mary, it's twenty good year—twenty-one, come Mothering Sunday—'Since he was here at the farm.
1880, Arthur Joseph Munby, Dorothy, page 663 more examples
...on Mothering Sunday, when all the ‘servant-lads’ and ‘servant wenches’ are, in some parts of the country, set at liberty for a day, to go and see their mothers...
1838, William Howitt, Rural Life in England, page 159"Mothering Sunday," the fourth Sunday in Lent, when absent sons and daughters—particularly the young apprentices—would return to their homes with some little present for both parents, but more especially for the mother... Imagine the... pride of the mother in the simple gift, and the admiration of the small brothers and sisters who gathered around and longed for the time when they also would be out in the great unknown world and could come "a-mothering."
1894 March, Mary B. Merrill, “Mothering Sunday”, in Mary Mapes Dodge, editor, St. Nicholas: a monthly magazine for boys and girls, volume 21, part 1, page 388Mothering Sunday is a British, Christian tradition. The Americans celebrate ‘Mother's Day’ later in the year.
2007, Susan Elkin, 100 Ideas for Secondary School Assemblies, page 12Synonyms: Mid-Lent, Mid-Lent Sunday, Mothering Day, Mother's Day, Laetare Sunday, Simnel Sunday, Refection Sunday, Refreshment Sunday
Synonyms & antonyms
proper nounThe fourth Sunday of Lent, three Sundays before Easter, now especially as a day to honor one's mother.
Origin
From the former British custom of visiting mother churches (q.v.) at Mid-Lent, which by the English Civil War had passed on to servants receiving leave to go a-mothering, visiting and providing small gifts to their families. Revived as a national tradition in the early 20th century after the model of Mother's Day in the United States.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Mothering Sunday. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Mothering%20Sunday
“Mothering Sunday.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Mothering%20Sunday. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Mothering Sunday,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Mothering%20Sunday.
Source: Mothering Sunday on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.