Etimology
From Middle English moder, from Old English mōdor, from Proto-West Germanic *mōder, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr, from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr. Superseded non-native Middle English mere (“mother”) borrowed from Old French mere (“mother”). Doublet of mata and mater. 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.
noun
mother (plural mothers)
A female parent, sometimes especially a human; a female who parents a child (which she has given birth to, adopted, or fostered).
A female who has given birth to a baby; this person in relation to her child or children.
A pregnant female; mother-to-be; a female who gestates a baby.
A female who donates a fertilized egg or donates a body cell which has resulted in a clone.
(figuratively) A female ancestor.
(figuratively) A source or origin.
Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind. (See mother of all.)
(dated, when followed by a surname) A title of respect for one's mother-in-law.
(dated) A term of address for one's wife.
(figuratively) Any elderly woman, especially within a particular community.
(figuratively) Any person or entity which performs mothering.
Dregs, lees; a stringy, mucilaginous or film- or membrane-like substance (consisting 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.
(rail transport) A locomotive which provides electrical power for a slug.
The principal piece of an astrolabe, into which the others are fixed.
The female superior or head of a religious house; an abbess, etc.
(obsolete) Hysterical passion; hysteria; the uterus.
A disc produced from the electrotyped master, used in manufacturing phonograph records.
Examples
I am visiting my mother today.
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.
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 .
Nutrients and oxygen obtained by the mother are conveyed to the fetus.
The antiabortion iconography in the last decade featured the fetus but never the mother.
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.
If the cat to be cloned is female, the nucleus donor cat could also be used as the surrogate mother instead of another cat.
And Adã called his wyfe Heua⸝ becauſe ſhe was the mother of all that lyveth
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;
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.
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?
The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.
Mother Smith, meet my cousin, Doug Jones.
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.
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?”
/ Mr. Hill: Hello, mother. […] How are you? / Mrs. Hill: Nothing wrong, dear, I hope.
The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.
Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
pieces of mother, adding mother to vinegar
O how this mother ſwels vp toward my hart […]
T.V. dicusseth tumors and mollifieth them, helps inflammations, rising of the mother and the epilepsie being burnt.
The Root hereof taken with Zedoary and Angelică, or without them, helps the rising of the Mother.
St Botolph's parish records ascribed three deaths to 'mother', an old name for the uterus.
Related words
synonyms
(one’s female parent): See also Thesaurus:mother
(most significant thing): father, grandfather, granddaddy
(of or pertaining to the mother, such as metropolis): metro-
antonyms
(with regards to gender) father
(with regards to ancestry) daughter, son, child, offspring
hypernyms
(a female parent): parent
coordinate terms
(a female parent): father
related terms
material
maternal
maternity
matriculate
matrimony
matrix
matter
Etimology
From Middle English modren, from the noun (see above).
verb
mother (third-person singular simple present mothers, present participle mothering, simple past and past participle mothered)
(chiefly transitive) To give birth to or produce (as its female parent) a child. (Compare father.)
(transitive) To treat as a mother would be expected to treat her child; to nurture.
(transitive) To cause to contain mother (“that substance which develops in fermenting alcohol and turns it into vinegar”).
(intransitive, of an alcohol) To develop mother.
Examples
Q's sister, Debbie, had mothered two kids by the time she was twenty, with neither of the fathers in sight.
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.
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.
mothered oil, mothered vinegar, mothered wine
Iron rusted, paper cracked, cream soured and vinegar mothered.
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.
Etimology
Clipping of motherfucker
noun
mother (plural mothers)
(euphemistic, mildly vulgar, slang) Motherfucker.
(euphemistic, colloquial) A striking example. (Appears as "mother of a(n) __".)
Examples
Stick a votive candle in it and fire that mother up, right?
Who run this mother
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.
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.
Basically, we wind up with a program. One mother of a complex application.
Josh, whose fleshy face resembles a rhino's - beady wide-set eyes blinking between a mother of a snout
Related words
synonyms
MF, mofo, motherfucker, mutha
Etimology
Coined from moth by analogy to mouser.
noun
mother (plural mothers)
Alternative form of moth-er