Meanings
- Used to describe someone or something very unlovable or repulsive.
It was a wreath only a mother could love.
2016, Amy Newmark, Chicken Soup for the Soul5 more examples
There was an interesting face beneath the spots, I thought as I looked at him, but at the moment at which fate rang our doorbell it was still a face only a mother could love, which was a problem for the boy on our doorstep.
1995, Nancy Pickard, Confession, page 5Mark was someone only a mother could love—but I did feel sorry for his mother.
2009, Tyler R. Tichelaar, The Only Thing That Lasts, page 164Sometimes, when he does something that only a mother could love, I get scared.
2013, Lori Duron ·, Raising My RainbowIt was a song that only a mother could love.
2019, Ian Brennan, Silenced by Sound: The Music Meritocracy MythThe resulting animal, it was said, was one only a mother could love.
2021, Michio Kaku, The God Equation
Origin
From the instinctual love that a mother has for her offspring.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
only a mother could love. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/only%20a%20mother%20could%20love
“only a mother could love.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/only%20a%20mother%20could%20love. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “only a mother could love,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/only%20a%20mother%20could%20love.
Source: only a mother could love on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.