| 释义 |
▪ I. mother, n.1|ˈmʌðə(r)|
Forms: 1 móder, -or, -ur, (módder), dat. méd(d)er, mœ́der, 3 moderr, (? moðer), pl. modren, 4–5 modire, modre, modur, modyr(e, mooder, 5 modure, 6 moeder, mothir, Sc. muddir, muder, 8–9 Sc. mither, 5– mother.
[Com. Teut. (but wanting in Gothic) and Indo-Germanic: OE. módor = OFris. môdar, OS. môdar, muodar (Du. moeder, LG. moder), OHG. muotar, -er (MHG. muoter, mod.G. mutter), ON. móðer (Sw., Da. moder):—OTeut. *mōđar- (cons.-stem):—pre-Teut. *māˈter-, cogn. w. Skr. *mātṛ, mātar-, Gr. µᾱ́τηρ-, µᾱτέρ- (Doric), µήτηρ, µητέρ- (Attic and Ionic), L. māter, OSl. mati, OIrish māthir.
As in the case of father, the substitution of th for the earlier d dates from the beginning of the 16th c., though the pronunciation with (ð) probably existed earlier. The occasional occurrence of the spelling moþer in the 14th c. (e.g. in the Göttingen MS. of the Cursor Mundi) has prob. no phonetic significance, being due to association with words like broþer, oþer, which in fact occur in the immediate context of several of the examples. The development of OE. ó to mod.E. |ʌ| (through uː, u, ʊ) is normal in the case of words in -ther, -der: cf. brother, other, rudder. In OE. the genitive sing. normally coincided in form with the nom., and many instances of the uninflected genitive occur in ME. and early mod.E. (see also 15 b). The genitive móderes is common in the Northumbrian gospels (10th c.).]
I.
1. a. A female parent; a woman who has given birth to a child. Correlative with son or daughter.
As with other terms of relationship, my is (exc. in poetic language) commonly omitted before mother used vocatively. On the other hand, in the 3rd person the use of mother for my mother is colloquial and familiar; in the middle of the 19th c. it was regarded as vulgar, or at least as unfashionable, but has now regained currency.
Mother is also used colloquially by a husband addressing or referring to his wife.
c1050Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 450/25 Mater, anes cildes modor. Materfamilias, maniᵹra cilda modur. c1200Ormin 168 He beþ full off Haliȝ Gast Ȝet in his moderr wambe. a1225Leg. Kath. 931 Of his feader soð godd, & of his moder soð mon. c1250Gen. & Ex. 1434 Ysaac..wunede ðor in ðoȝt and care, for moderes dead and sondes care. 1340Hampole Pr. Consc. 447 He was consayved synfully With-in his awen moder body. 1340Ayenb. 67 Þis zenne is ine uele maneres ase..ine children aye hare uaderes and hare modren. c1386Chaucer Doctor's T. 93 Ye fadres and ye moodres. c1425Wyntoun Cron. ii. vi. 488 And thare modyre banys ta. c15111st Eng. Bk. Amer. (Arb.) Introd. 33/1 The[y] ete theym all rawe, both there one fader or moeder. 1526Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 13 As infantes or tender babes newe borne of theyr mother. 1556Chron. Gr. Friars (Camden) 25 The qwenys moder dicessyd. 1588Shakes. L.L.L. ii. i. 255 Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim. 1607― Cor. iv. i. 15 Nay Mother. Ibid. 27 My Mother, you wot well [etc.]. c1633Milton Arcades 22 Cybele, Mother of a hundred gods. c1702C. Mather Magn. Chr. vi. ii. (1852) 356 She lived to be a mother of several children. 1790Cowper Receipt Mother's Picture 21 My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead. c1830T. H. Bayly Song, ‘We met—'twas in a crowd’, Oh, thou hast been the cause of this anguish, My mother!
1855Dickens Dorrit (1857) i. ii. 13 Mother (my usual name for Mrs. Meagles) began to cry so, that it was necessary to take her out. ‘What's the matter, Mother?’ said I..‘you are frightening Pet.’.. ‘Yes, I know that, Father,’ says Mother. 1898J. D. Brayshaw Slum Silhouettes 156 ‘Sit yer down, mother,’ said Joe, taking his seat at the head of the table. 1932A. Christie Peril at End House v. 68 Mother and I..feel it's only neighbourly to do what we can. 1970P. Carlon Souvenir ii. 35 Don't you loathe the way old folks call each other Mother and Dad?
b. Said of animals.
Rare in ME. and early mod.E., being superseded by dam n.2 2, which afterwards became restricted to quadrupeds, and is now rarely used exc. of mares.
a900Laws Alfred xvi, ᵹif mon cu oððe stodmyran forstele & folan oððe cealf ofadrife, forᵹelde mid scill. & þa moder be hiora weorðe. 1382Wyclif Exod. xxiii. 19 Thow shalt not seethe a kydde in the mylk of his moder. [So all later versions.] 1632Lithgow Trav. ix. 380 Young Chickens, which are not hatched by their mothers, but in the Fernace. 1692R. L'Estrange Fables ccxxi. 193 Pray Mother (says the Young Crab) do but set the Example your self, and I'll follow ye. 1868Tennyson Lucretius 100 And lambs are glad Nosing the mother's udder.
c. Mother of God, God's Mother (= Gr. θεοτόκος): a frequent designation of the Virgin Mary in Catholic use.
c1122O.E. Chron. an. 994 (Laud MS.) Se haliᵹe Godes modor. c1410Hoccleve Mother of God 1 Modir of god, and virgyn undeffouled. c1440Gesta Rom. lxxxv. 405 (Add. MS.) That blessyd ladie, goddis modre. 1483Cath. Angl. 161/1 Goddes modyr; mater dei, theoticus. 1591Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, i. ii. 78. 1898 W. K. Johnson Terra Tenebr. 105 Mother of God, we here enthrone Thee, thy slain Son, within thy house.
d. abstr. (a) Womanish qualities inherited from the mother. (b) That which is characteristic of motherhood; maternal affection.
1599Shakes. Hen. V, iv. vi. 31 But I had not so much of man in mee, And all my mother came into my eyes, And gaue me vp to teares. 1725Pope Odyss. xi. 188 Strait all the mother in her soul awakes. 1747Richardson Clarissa I. 121, I thought, by the glass before me, I saw the mother in her soften'd eye cast towards me. 1807J. Barlow Columb. iii. 186 Thrice have those lovely lips the victim prest, And all the mother torn that tender breast. 1847M. Howitt Ballads 33 The mother in my soul was strong. 1884Tennyson Becket v. ii, Look! how this love, this mother, runs thro' all The world God made.
e. In extended sense: A female ancestress. Now rare exc. in our first mother.
c1050Suppl. ælfric's Gloss. in Wr.-Wülcker 173/11 Proauuia, þridde moder. a1300Cursor M. 934 Eue sco hight eue fra þat dai, þat moder of mani es for to sai. 14..Nom. in Wr.-Wülcker 689/41 Hec proava, the forne modyre. 1611Bible Gen. xvii. 16 Yea I wil blesse her, and she shalbe a mother of nations. 1667Milton P.L. xi. 159 Whence Haile to thee Eve rightly call'd, Mother of all Mankind.
f. Applied to a stepmother or a mother-in-law.
c1546Edw. VI Let. to Q. Cath. Parr in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. i. II. 131 Most honorable and entirely beloued mother. 1589Reg. Privy Council Scot. IV. 444 His Hienes, invited be his darrest moder the Quene of Denmarkis..letters. 1859Tennyson Geraint 779 O my new mother, be not wroth or grieved At thy new son, for my petition to her.
g. Proverbs and proverbial phrases. † to take one's (own) mother for a maid: app. orig. intended to exemplify extreme simplicity. to have too much of his mother's blessing: said of a youth who is unreasonably prudish or scrupulous. does your mother know you're out? (slang): a jeering question addressed to one who shows excessive simplicity or juvenile presumption. (just) like mother makes (or used to make) (it): having the qualities of home cooking; exactly to one's taste; also fig.
[1598Shakes. Merry W. ii. ii. 40 Fal. Good-morrow, good-wife. Qui. Not so and't please your worship. Fal. Good maid, then. Qui. Ile be sworne, As my mother was the first houre I was borne.] 1606L. Bryskett Civ. Life 102 Too much, is harmeful euen in iustice it self: whereupon is growne..our English prouerbe, that too much of a mans mothers blessing is not good. 1664Cotton Scarron. i. 48 So smug she [Venus] was, and so array'd He took his Mother for a Maid. 16..MS. Ashm. 36 lf. 112 If euor Ice doe come heare againe, Ice zaid, Chil give thee my Mother vor a maid. 1838? T. Martin in Bentley's Miscell. III. 416 And she asked me ‘How's your mother? Does she know that you are out?’ 1842Barham Ingol. Leg., Misadv. Margate, ‘Sir, does your mother know that you are out?’ 1919Wodehouse Damsel in Distress i. 18 There's a new musical comedy at the Regal. Opened last night, and seems to be just like mother makes. 1927W. E. Collinson Contemp. Eng. 52 The notice outside some eating-houses, beef-steak pie like mother makes it! 1963Wodehouse Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves v. 39 Its facade, its spreading grounds..and what not were all just like Mother makes. 1975D. Clark Premedicated Murder iv. 68 Just like my old mother used to make. A bit of candied peel in a bun can't be beat.
h. Used as an exclamation of surprise, dismay, etc.; freq. my mother!
1869‘Mark Twain’ Innoc. Abr. 52 Twenty-five cigars, at 100 reis, 2500 reis! Oh, my sainted mother! 1909Sat. Even. Post 22 May 6/3 ‘Gee, what a peach of an idea!’ ‘Oh, mother!’ 1959N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 93 He roared with laughter now. ‘Oh, my mother.’ 1972C. Achebe Girls at War 107 ‘Plane!’ screamed his boy from the kitchen. ‘My mother!’ screamed Gladys.
i. mothers and fathers: a game in which children act out the roles of mother and father.
1903G. R. Sims Living London xxxiii. 271/1 Sometimes..they [sc. the boys] will join the girls in a mimic domestic drama of ‘Mothers and Fathers’. 1969[see infant-school]. 1972J. Wilson Hide & Seek vii. 130 Shall we play mothers and fathers with our dolls?
j. Ellipt. for mother-fucker. U.S. slang.
[1948Manone & Vandervoort Trumpet on Wing 70 ‘I'll be a motheree if I'll wear any damn bedpan intern's suit,’ I screamed.] 1955S. Whitmore Solo iii. 42 Jaeger said,..‘He's..so weak now, he can't blow note one.’ ‘Hell, this mother never could,’ Alfred laughed. 1959N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 358 Old K, he's nothing but a mother. 1967Melody Maker 14 Jan. 8 Mother, term of abuse. As in ‘You're a mother, baby!’ 1972Sunday Times 7 May 10/6 ‘Man we must just get out of here before those mothers get us all..,’ he shouted at me. 1973New Yorker 17 Feb. 62/2 Out the parachute, out the radio, change the c.g., and the mother will go. 1975N.Y. Times 8 Sept. 33/2 ‘You mothers! I ain't been out five minutes and I just got outta the pen this morning!’ Her name is Judy, and although she is white, she talks black jive.
2. fig. Applied to things more or less personified, with reference either to a metaphorical giving birth, to the protecting care exercised by a mother, or to the affectionate reverence due to a mother.
a. Said of a quality, condition, event, etc., that gives rise to some other.
c1386Chaucer Pard. T. 263 Hasard is verray mooder of lesynges, And of deceite and cursed forswerynges. c1449Pecock Repr. v. xiv. 555 Loue to money..is moder of passing myche yuel. 1463–4Rolls of Parlt. V. 507/1 Ydelnes, moder of all vyces. 1573New Custom i. i, That I Ignorance am the mother of true deuotion. 1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. xv. §1 The mother of such magnificence (they thinke) is but only a proude ambitious desire to be spoken of farre and wide. 1611B. Jonson Catiline iii. ii, For 'tis despaire that is the mother of madnesse. 1766Franklin Let. Wks. 1887 III. 463, I congratulate you on the repeal of that mother of mischiefs, the Stamp Act. 1799Hull Advertiser 21 Dec. 4/2 The..maxim that ‘freight is the mother of wages’. 1824Lamb Elia Ser. ii. Blakesmoor in H—shire, The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought.
b. Said of the earth. See also mother earth.
a1000Charms i. 69 Hal wes þu, folde, fira modor. c1250Gen. & Ex. 122 Of euerilc ouȝt, of euerilc sed, Was erðe mad moder of sped. 1600Surflet Country Farm i. iv. 13 As for the earth..it beareth all manner of corne, fruits,..and other things,..and heereupon old writers haue iustly giuen vnto it the due name of mother. 1625Bacon Ess., Riches (Arb.) 235 Our Great Mothers Blessing, the Earths. 1667Milton P.L. v. 338 Whatever Earth all⁓bearing Mother yeilds In India East or West. 1822Shelley tr. Calderon's Mag. Prodig. ii. 79 O Beloved earth, dear mother. 1821Lamb Elia Ser. i. Old Benchers, But the common mother of us all in no long time after received him gently into her lap. 1876[see motherly 3].
c. Said of the church: see church n. 8.
Mother Church is either treated as a quasi-proper name (though initial capitals are not always used) or preceded by a possessive pronoun.
1377Langl. P. Pl. B. xvi. 197 Children of charite & holicherche þe moder. c1460Wisdom 992 in Macro Plays 68 Now haue ye for-yeffnes þat were fylyde, To prey yowur modyr chyrche of her proteccion. 1539Pery in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. ii. II. 145 According to the lawdebwll usse and costom of owr holly mother Chwrche. 1630Yaxlee Morbus & Antid. To Rdr., The obedient sonne of my deare Mother the true Church of England. 1695J. Edwards Perfect. Script. 589 A learned and pious son of our mother. 1726Ayliffe Parergon 22 The Good of Mother Church, as well as that of Civil Society, renders a Judicial Practice in criminal Cases entirely necessary. 1784Cowper Task ii. 576 So we, no longer taught By monitors that mother church supplies [etc.]. 1833Tracts for Times No. 13. 6 The mysterious time of Christmas approaching, our Mother, with true parental anxiety, takes up..the thread of her instructions anew.
d. Said of a country, city, etc., in relation to its natives; spec. in Mother Russia.
[1382Wyclif Gal. iv. 26: literally from Vulg.] c1550Bale K. Johan (Camden) 66 O Englande, Englande! showe now thyselfe a mother, Thy people wyll els be slayne here without nomber. 1593Shakes. Rich. II, i. iii. 307 Then Englands ground farewell: sweet soil adieu, My Mother, and my Nurse. 1699Rhode Isl. Col. Rec. (1858) III. 374 We being wholly ruled and governed by the good and wholesome [laws] of our Mother, the kingdom of England. 1726Swift Gulliver ii. vii, I have always borne that laudable Partiality to my own Country, which [etc.]..: I would hide the Frailties and Deformities of my political Mother. 1786Burns Ernest Cry & Pr. Postscr. vii, Scotland, my auld, respected Mither! 1851Borrow Lavengro xvi, ‘What horse is that?’..‘The best in mother England’, said the very old man. 1901Henley Hawthorn & Lavender, etc. 102 Blow, you bugles of England, blow Over the camps of the fallen foe—Blow glory and pity to the victor Mother, Sad, O, sad in her sacrificial dead! 1966J. Bingham Double Agent v. 71, I love Russia... Great Mother Russia. 1972P. Ruell Red Christmas xv. 153 Came as quite a shock to them when they realised we weren't doing it all for Mother Russia. 1973D. Bagley Tightrope Men xxiv. 164 ‘See that tower over there?’..‘A Russian observation tower. That's Mother Russia.’
e. Said of one's university. Cf. Alma Mater.
1647–8Wood Life 15 Feb. (O.H.S.) I. 140 Who fed with the papp of Aristotle at twenty or thirtie yeares of age, and suck at the duggs of their mother the University. 1721Amherst Terræ Fil. Ded. (1754) 5, I had much rather have your approbation than your censure, and enjoy the favour of my dear mother.
f. Applied to Nature, and occasionally to other personified abstractions represented as protecting or controlling powers.
1601R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. (1603) 35 Whereas mother Nature hath interlaced so riotously her golden and siluer veins in the bosom and wombe of Peru. 1617Moryson Itin. i. 181 Experience, the mother of fooles. 1764Goldsm. Trav. 81 Nature, a mother kind alike to all. 1813Shelley Q. Mab. vi. 198 Necessity! thou mother of the world! 1866M. Arnold Thyrsis xviii, And now in happier air Wandering with the great Mother's train divine.
g. Said of a city, country, institution from which another originates as an offshoot.
1560J. Daus tr. Sleidane's Comm. 280 b, The churche of Rome, mother and maistres of al others. 1838Thirlwall Greece II. xii. 106 It [Sinope] became in its turn the mother of several flourishing cities.
h. In physical sense: The material source of a substance; also, the parent stock on which anything grows, or the main stem or channel from which others branch off.
c1384Chaucer H. Fame 1983 Auenture, That is the moder of tydynges, As the see of welles and sprynges. 1604E. G[rimstone] D'Acosta's Hist. Indies v. xviii. 378 Saying, that these shells were daughters of the sea, the mother of all waters. 1611Cotgr., Artere aorte, the great Arterie, mother Arterie, or mother of arteries. 1668Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. Man. i. iii. 306 All the Veins of the whole Body are referred unto two as their Mothers. 1675Evelyn Terra (1676) 44 Water..was by some thought to be the Mother of Earth. 1681Grew Musæum iii. i. iv. 283 Another clear Crystal, growing on a Semiperspicuous Mother. 1721Bradley Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat. 41 The fruit of the Indian Fig..will strike Root and become a Plant as perfect as the mother it was taken from. 1868Lockyer Elem. Astron. iii. §15 (1879) 85 Aqueous vapour is the great mother of clouds.
3. A woman who exercises control like that of a mother, or who is looked up to as a mother.
a. One who has religious authority or dignity. Often applied to the Virgin Mary (cf. 1 c).
c1366Chaucer A.B.C. 133 Mooder, of whom oure merci gan to springe Beth ye my juge & eek my soules leche. c1375Sc. Leg. Saints xviii. (Egipciane) 307 Spirituale modyr, quhat-sa þu be, for godis sak schau þe to me! 1563Winȝet Four Scoir Thre Quest. Wks. (S.T.S.) I. 73 The glorius Virgine, the Mothir. a1711Ken Psyche Poet. Wks. 1721 IV. 165 Sophronia..Who of her sex the guidance nicely skill'd,..Heav'n for their Ghostly Mother had design'd. 1868Sir H. W. Baker in Hymns A. & M. App. No. 376 Shall we not love thee, Mother dear, Whom Jesus loves so well?
b. A title given to the head or superior of a female religious community.
1603Shakes. Meas. for M. i. iv. 86, I will about it strait, No longer staying, but to giue the Mother Notice of my affaire. 1611Beaum. & Fl. Philaster ii. ii, The reuerend mother sent me word, They would all be for the garden. 1798J. Baillie De Monfort v. vi, Freberg [to Abbess] And you have wisely done, my rev'rend mother. 1820Scott Abbot xii, They call me Lady Abbess, or Mother at the least, who address me. 1883Mrs. Craik in Longm. Mag. Jan. 306, I could understand how the Mother was just the woman to be head of a community like this. 1907Athenæum 2 Nov. 545/3 The astute yet saintly mother-superior.
†c. mother of the maids: the head of the maids of honour in a Royal household. Obs.
1577–8New Yr.'s Gifts in Nichols Progr. Eliz. (1823) II. 88 To Mrs. Hyde, Mother of the Mades. 1633Brome North. Lass i. iv, She might ha' been Mother o' the Maids. 1682Luttrell Brief Rel. (1857) I. 159 The lady Sanderson, mother of the maids of honour to her majestie, was interred in the abby. 1711Hearne Collect. (O.H.S.) III. 132 Mrs. *** Mother of the Maids to K. James IIds Queen.
d. In occasional uses.
1897Daily News 13 July 8/7 Separate cottage buildings, each under the charge of a person called a ‘mother’, had been established [as homes for girls].
e. Colloq. phr. to be mother: to serve out portions of food or drink; spec. to pour out tea.
[1926G. B. Shaw Glimpse of Reality in Translations & Tomfooleries 184 Let us get to work at the supper. You shall be the mother of the family and give us our portions, Giulietta.] 1958‘J. Brogan’ Cummings Report ii. 17 We'll go and have tea, and you be Mother. 1967J. Porter Dover & Unkindest Cut iv. 41 MacGregor, hearing the tea cups rattling outside..opened the door again. ‘Shall I be mother, sir?’ 1974J. Mitchell Death & Bright Water xx. 243 ‘Shall I be mother?’ Callan nodded, and Blythe's strong fingers popped the cork, the champagne foamed into the glasses.
f. The female owner of a pet, esp. of a dog. colloq.
1924Galsworthy White Monkey i. vi. 39 Ting was..trying to climb a railing whereon was..a black cat... ‘Give him to me, Ellen. Come with Mother, darling!’ 1940N. Mitford Pigeon Pie ix. 139 Many mothers of dogs had fetched their little ones home.
4. a. A term of address for an elderly woman of the lower class. Also used (instead of Mrs.) as a prefix to the surname of such a person.
c1386Chaucer Wife's T. 149 My leeue mooder, quod this knyght [etc.]. 1476Paston Lett. III. 148 That owther Syme or Mother Brown maye deliver it me to morow. 1496–7Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1905) 34 Item, a Towell of the gyfte of Mother Ienet. 1533J. Heywood Play of Love C iij b, Mother quoth I how doth my dere darlyng. 1588Nottingham Rec. IV. 221 At one wyddoez house named Mother Jane. 1593Tell-troth's N.Y. Gift (1876) 13 While mother trot and her fellowes were descanting on others honesty. 1847C. Brontë J. Eyre xix, ‘Well, and you want your fortune told’, she said... ‘I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself’.
b. Mother Bunch [f. the name of a noted ale-wife of late Elizabethan times]: (a) Obs. slang, water; (b) a stout or untidy old woman. Mother Carey's Chicken, Goose: see chicken n.1 4, goose 2. Mother Hubbard: a kind of cloak (named after a person celebrated in a well-known nursery rime); also, a kind of loose-fitting garment (chiefly U.S.). Mother Shipton: the name of a legendary ‘prophetess’ of the 16th c.; adopted as the name of a moth, Euclidea mi (also called the Shipton moth).
1591Spenser (title) Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale. 1600Dekker Shoemaker's Holiday sig. H2v Am I sure that Paules steeple is a handful higher than London stone? or that the pissing conduit leakes nothing but pure mother Bunch? 1847C. Brontë J. Eyre II. iii. 81 You talked of going..to visit the gipsy camp;..one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants' hall at this moment. 1861G. J. Whyte-Melville Market Harborough viii. 94, I have seen mammas whom the fairest of Eve's daughters might be proud to resemble; but it is sometimes hard upon the young Phœbe to have..at her side the shapeless Mother Bunch, into the fac-simile of which she must eventually grow. 1878F. M. A. Roe Army Lett. from Officer's Wife (1909) 186, I made a Mother Hubbard apron of white paper-cambric. 1882Wide Awake (Boston, Mass.) Jan. 18/2 A little girl in a sort of Mother Hubbard cap..is starting off on a journey. 1882W. F. Kirby Europ. Butterflies & M. (1903) Plate xlii, Euclidia Mi—Mother Shipton. 1883Fort. Rev. 1 Sept. 351 The ugly and unbecoming covering so long popular as the Mother Hubbard cloak. 1884Nat. Police Gaz. (U.S.) 30 Aug. 12/3 Mattoon's Chief of Police issued an order that any woman appearing on the streets wearing a Mother Hubbard dress would be arrested and lodged in jail. 1894Outing XXIV. 271/1 Six years ago the finest dress to be seen was a calico Mother Hubbard. 1911Daily Colonist (Victoria, B.C.) 19 Apr. 24/4 Overall Aprons, of navy print with white dots, made in Mother Hubbard style. 1919W. S. Maugham Moon & Sixpence xlix. 212 Tiaré Johnson..was dressed usually in a pink Mother Hubbard. 1939J. Steinbeck Grapes of Wrath viii. 99 Ma..wore a loose Mother Hubbard of grey cloth... The dress came down to her ankles. 1943H. W. Krieger Island Peoples of Western Pacific 40 The native dress of the women [of the Gilbert Islands], a grass skirt extending from the waist to the knee, has been for the most part replaced by the ‘Mother Hubbard’, which is made of imported cotton print cloth. 1964Guardian 28 Dec. 6/4 She no more looks like a Mother Bunch than sounds like one..a fairly plump but elegant, well-dressed woman. 1966‘R. Standish’ Widow Hack viii. 87, I can persuade you to swim wearing a Mother Hubbard over your swimsuit. Then I'll be able to concentrate.
II. Technical applications.
5. In obsolete scientific uses: after L. mater.
†a. Anat. In the names of certain structures in the brain. hard mother = dura mater; godly mother, meek mother, mild mother, soft mother = pia mater. Obs.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. v. i. (Tollem. MS.), Þe harde moder and þe milde moder. Ibid. v. iii. (1495) 105. Ibid. 106 The seconde webbe and skynne of the brayne hyghte pia mater the meke moder. 1541R. Copland Guydon's Quest. Chirurg. E j, The soft moder by vaynes. 1594[see godly a. 3]. 1615Crooke Body of Man 444 The one of these..is thicke and called dura mater the hard Mother, the other..thinne called pia mater, the deere or neere Mother.
b. Astrol. = mater 1. Obs.
c1391Chaucer Astrol. i. §3 The Moder of thyn Astrolabie is the thikkeste plate.
c. Geomancy. (See quot. 1591.) Obs.
1591Sparry tr. Cattan's Geomancie 8 These four figures be called the mothers, whereof the first is attributed to the Fire, the second to the Aire, the third to the Water, the fourth to the Earthe. 1653R. Sanders Physiogn. 32, I erected my Figure, drawing from my points and lines, a Mother. 1889Sat. Rev. 16 Feb. 175/1 You then have in all four geomantic figures, which are called the mothers. The top spot (or pair of spots) of each mother is called the head, the second the neck, &c.
6. = mother-liquor, -water: see 17 a.
1611Florio, Acqua Maestra, the master-water. Salt-peeter men call it mother of Salt peeter. 1674Ray Collection 136 (Manner of making Vitriol) The liquor that remains after the vitriol is crystallized, they call the mother. 1678Phil. Trans. XII. 1055 When the Work is begun, and Alum once made, then they save the Liquour which comes from the Alum, or wherein the Alum shoots, which they call Mothers. 1681Grew Musæum iii. §iii. i. 343 The Lee after the first shooting of the Alum; is called Mothers. 1758Reid tr. Macquer's Chym. I. 240 Evaporate and crystallize... Repeat the same operation till the liquor will yield no more crystals: it will then be very thick, and goes by the name of Mother of Nitre. 1839Penny Cycl. XV. 448/1 Mother⁓water. When any saline solution has been evaporated so as to deposit crystals on cooling, the remaining solution is termed the mother-water, or sometimes merely the mothers.
7. (More fully, artificial mother.) An apparatus for rearing chickens artificially.
1807Trans. Soc. Arts XXV. 25 Artificial mothers for the chickens to run under. 1830‘B. Moubray’ Dom. Poultry (ed. 6) 48 An artificial mother cannot be dispensed with, under which the chickens may brood and shelter. 1884Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl., Mother, the hen-mother at Baker's Cresshill poultry farm is of hollow zinc, filled with hot water [etc.]. 1906Westm. Gaz. 14 Nov. 8/3 Incubators, and poultry ‘mothers’.
8. A cask or vat used in vinegar-making.
1830M. Donovan Dom. Econ. I. 329 Into each vat or mother are poured twenty-two gallons of good vinegar boiling. 1839Ure Dict. Arts 3 The vessels employed for carrying on the fermentation are casks, called mothers.
9. The inner bark of a cork-tree.
1862Illustr. Lond. News 25 Jan. 101/1 The first act of the cultivator is to separate it [the ‘male’] from the trunk, which thus leaves exposed the liber, termed ‘mother’.
10. Naut. = mother-ship: see 17 a, below.
1907Daily Chron. 5 Aug. 4/4 Four ‘mothers’ and the ‘Sapphire’, flagship of Admiral Montgomerie.
11. A disc with grooves that is made from the plating of an electrotyped master matrix and is used to make a stamper for gramophone records.
1918H. Seymour Reproduction of Sound 182 The obverse impressions of the original matrix are called ‘mothers’ in the trade, in view of their office in reproducing matrices from the ‘master’. 1935H. C. Bryson Gramophone Record vi. 134 The mother, usually about ·03 inch thick, is then stripped from the master by inserting a blunt knife carefully between them and prising them apart. 1952Godfrey & Amos Sound Recording & Reproduction v. 139 A second negative copy known as the ‘stamper’ or ‘working matrix’ is obtained from the mother. 1968Jazz Monthly Feb. 4/1 John Steiner..owns the rights to what remains of the Paramount company, including numerous masters and mothers, so it is likely that the actual recording quality will be a great deal better than that on most past Paramount-derived reissues.
III. 12. a. The womb. Obs.
1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. v. xlix. (1495) 166 The moder in wymen is synguler membre disposyd as a bladder. 14..Parts of Hum. Body in Wr.-Wülcker 632/7 Modure, matrix. 1545T. Raynalde Byrth Mankynde 9 These thre woordes, the matrix, the mother, and the wombe do sygnyfie but one thyng. 1609Holland Amm. Marcell. 55 The daintie meat made of the mother..of a young sow. 1657W. Coles Adam in Eden ix. 20 The lesser Lavander is much commended in all Diseases of the Mother. 1681W. Robertson Phraseol. Gen. (1693) 897 The mother or womb; matrix. 1706Phillips (ed. Kersey), Hystera, the Mother or Womb.
fig.1398Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xi. xiv. (Tollem. MS.), As Gregory sayeþ, he [lightning] comeþ oute of his moder [L. de matrice sua] as a twynkelynge of an ye. 1610Willet Hexapla Dan. 291 That first law was the mother and wombe as it were of all Gods precepts.
†b. rising (suffocation, swelling upward, etc.) of the mother: Hysteria.
1527Andrew Brunswyke's Distyll. Waters M iv, Dronke of the same water..is very good for women whose moder dooth ronne upwarde to the harte. 1601Holland Pliny II. 40 The rising or suffocation of the mother in women,..it cureth. 1626Bacon Sylva §935 They doe use for the Accident of the Mother, to burn Feathers [etc.]: and by those Ill Smels the Rising of the Mother is put down.
13. Hysteria: equivalent to the phrases in 12 b. Also fits of the mother. Obs. or arch.
14..Stockh. Med. MS. ii. 314 in Anglia XVIII. 315 It is good to playster & many oþer thyng For þe moder & to drynkyng. 1545T. Raynalde Byrth Mankynde 116 [Diseases of infants.] Fearefulnesse in the dreames: the mother: yssuynge out of the fundament gut. 1605Shakes. Lear ii. iv. 56 Oh how this Mother swels vp toward my heart! Historica passio, downe thou climing sorrow. 1607Topsell Hist. Fourf. Beasts (1658) 104 It pacifieth the milt,..expelleth away mothers. 1615Crooke Body of Man 231 Many passions called Hystericæ, which we call fits of the Mother. 1620Venner Via Recta (1650) 63 It is not fit for women to use that are subject to hystericall fits, which they call the Mother. 1672J. Josselyn New Eng. Rarities 86 Mayweed, excellent for the mother. 1706–7Farquhar Beaux Strat. i. i, She cures..fits of the mother, in women. 1792E. Sibly Occult Sciences I. 103 The particular diseases of this sign are..hardness of the spleen, mother, hypocondriac melancholy. 1820Mair Tyro's Dict. (ed. 10) 373 Strangulatus, a disease in women called the mother.
IV. Quasi-adj. and in Combination.
14. Used appositively: = ‘that is a mother’.
a. lit., of animals.
a1300Cursor M. 14969 A moder ass yee sal þar find, And yee hir sal vn-do vte of hir band. 1465Paston Lett. II. 211 There lefte behynde of Heylesdonfolde of my mastre schepe xlj modreschep. 1630in R. Griffiths Ess. Conservancy Thames (1746) 74 No Trinck shall stand to fish before any Breach Mouth at the rising or sinking of any Mother-Fishes, or in the Time of Spawn or Brood of Fishes. 1697Dryden Virg. Georg. iii. 87 The Mother Cow must wear a low'ring Look. 1793Cowper A Tale 45 The mother-bird is gone to sea. 1817Coleridge Zapolya ii. ii, The mother-falcon hath her nest above it. 1882Floyer Unexpl. Baluchistan 202 Then there were four old mother goats.
b. of a woman or a goddess.
1625K. Long tr. Barclay's Argenis i. xx. 58 Pallas, whose young and tender yeeres No Mother-goddesse dandeled. 1675H. Woolley Gentlew. Companion 3 Be ye Mother-patterns of Virtue to your Daughters. 1759Grainger Tibullus I. 41 Thee, Orpheus, what avail'd..Thy Mother-muse and beast-enchanting song. 1904W. M. Ramsay Lett. to Seven Ch. xix. 258 The tutelary deity of Smyrna was the Mother-goddess Cybele.
c. transf. and fig. of things (see sense 2); spec. mother-house, the founding house of a religious order.
a1225Ancr. R. 216 Ȝe habbeð iherd..of þeo þet me cleopeð ȝe seoue moder sunnen. 1479Priory of Hexham (Surtees) II. 24 Molendinum..cum stagno et le modir-dame. 1594Hooker Eccl. Pol. i. iii. §2 Those principall & mother elements of the world, wherof all things in this lower world are made. 1604Hieron Wks. I. 484 Because ignorance is a mother sin, therefore [etc.]. 1611Cotgr., Veine saphene, the mother veine. c1611Chapman Iliad xxii. 129 Till they reacht, where those two mother springs, Of deepe Scamander, pour'd abroad, their siluer murmurings. 1645Rutherford Tryal & Tri. Faith (1845) 85 Christ hath covenant-right to the promises by this mother-right, that God is his God by covenant. 1661Manifest publisht to their Brethren by General Chapter of Catholick English Clergy 3 Dr. Leyburn does calumniate us, as being Enemies to our Mother-house, the Colledge of Doway. 1691Norris Pract. Disc. 118 Love..is a general Mother-Vertue, the principle of a more particular and special Obedience. 1763Mills Syst. Pract. Husb. IV. 403 The layers..must be allowed two years to take root, before they are cut off from the mother-tree. a1773A. Butler Lives Saints (1779) III. 243 When in 1504 the abbey of Mount Cassino joined this Congregation, it took the name of this mother-house. 1784M. Weighton Drainage Award 9 The mother drain, or navigable canal, now made. 1791E. Darwin Bot. Gard. i. 32 Lifts proud Anteus from his mother-plains. 1798Coleridge Fears in Solit. 176 O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle! 1840[see branch house s.v. branch n. 13]. 1854Stanley Mem. Canterb. i. (1857) 26 The Cathedral of Canterbury [is] the mother cathedral of England. 1874Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 342 On the supposition that it is the mother-vein of the country from which the ores of the Silver Flat..are derived. 1932C. P. Curran in F. J. Sheed Irish Way 269 In this spirit she worked for ten years in the Mother-house and novitiate. 1956K. Hulme Nun's Story i. 12 The Order was established at the end of the eighteenth century. How many postulants had passed through this mother house could never be guessed.
d. In modern Biology and Pathology, of structures or growths from which others proceed, as mother-abscess, mother-meristem, mother nucleus, mother-vesicle.
1898P. Manson Trop. Diseases xxiii. 361 Generally the pulmonary abscess communicates with the *mother-abscess in the liver.
1874Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. XIV. 304 The *mother-meristem of the fibro-vascular system.
1891Syd. Soc. Lex., *Mother nucleus.
1885–8Fagge & Pye-Smith Princ. Med. (ed. 2) I. 28 In such cases [of infection by inoculation] however, there is developed a ‘primary’ or ‘*mother-vesicle’.
15. a. Simple attrib. (more or less rhetorical): as mother arms, mother bosom, mother heart, mother-instinct, mother love, mother mind, mother pain, mother pang, mother pity, mother-sentiment, mother smile, mother want; objective, as mother † queller, mother-slayer; mother murdering adj.; instrumental, as mother-centred, mother-dominated, mother murdered adj.; parasynthetic, as mother hearted adj. Also motherwards, motherwise advs.
1843Carlyle Past & Pr. iii. viii. 235 In how many ways..does she, as with blessed *mother-arms, enfold us all!
1837― Fr. Rev. I. iii. ii. 135 How she will reabsorb the former into her *Mother-bosom.
1956Firth & Djamour in R. Firth Two Studies of Kinship in London ii. 41 Some United States sociologists..have suggested the term ‘*mother-centred families’ for households in which the mother has the dominant role. 1965Observer 4 Apr. 26/4 Pirandello..was a mother-centred man.
1963Times 23 Apr. 16/4 The *mother-dominated hero.
1881‘Mark Twain’ Prince & Pauper 114 Her sharp *mother-instinct seemed to detect it. 1920T. P. Nunn Education xi. 131 A thorough-going misogynist could make out a case for applying the adjectives ‘mechanical’, ‘blind’, ‘unintelligent’, even to human mother-instinct.
1854[De Powys] Uriel, etc. (1857) 106 All things rest,..Lulled in Mary's *mother-love.
1647Cowley Mistr., My Hrt. Discovered 16 Thoughts..Fair and chast, as *Mother-Mind.
a1592Marlowe Ovid's Eleg. ii. xiv. 30 *Mother-murder'd Itys.
1590C'tess Pembroke Antonie 58 Orestes torche, Which sometimes burnt his *mother-murdering soule.
1709Mrs. Manley Secret Mem. (1736) II. 44 When the *Mother-Pains came upon her.
Ibid. III. 15 Like..Abortives under the *Mother Pangs. 1819J. H. Payne Brutus v. iii, To strike their country in the mother-pangs Of struggling child-birth.
1878Pater Wks. (1901) V. 110 His [C. Lamb's] simple *mother-pity for those who suffer.
c1440Promp. Parv. 341/2 *Modyr qwellare,..matricida.
1920*Mother-sentiment [see father n. 11 b].
c1375Sc. Leg. Saints xvi. (Magdalena) 462 Allace! nov is þe barne sa borne *modyr-slaar. 1483Cath. Angl. 242/1 A Modyr slaer, matricida.
1838Mrs. Browning Rom. Ganges xix, Press deeper down thy *mother-smile His glossy curls among.
1856― Aur. Leigh i. 40, I felt a *mother-want about the world.
1893Tablet 15 July 110 It does not forbid the dying son to cast his eyes *motherwards.
1890Le Gallienne Meredith 52 She smiles on them *motherwise.
b. with the sense ‘inherited or learned from one's mother’, ‘native’, as in mother tongue and combinations imitated from this; also in mother-wit, mother-sense.
1603Owen Pembrokeshire iii. (1892) 36 For otherwise the Englishe tongue had not ben theire comon and mother speache as it was. 1611Beaum. & Fl. Philaster v. iv, Let..your nimble tongs forget your mother Gibberish. 1644Milton Educ. 2 He were nothing so much to be esteem'd a learned man, as any..tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only. 1732Law Serious C. xix. (1761) 324 As we call our first language our mother-tongue, so we may as justly call our first tempers our mother-tempers. 1851Borrow Lavengro xvii, You want two things, brother: mother sense, and gentle Rommany. 1904J. Wells J. H. Wilson vi. 64 A racy and powerful evangelist in his mother-Scotch.
16. a. Genitive combinations, as mother's bairn Sc. (said of a spoiled child); mother's blessing (see quot. 1861); mother's boy, a boy or man who resembles or is dominated by, or excessively attached to, his mother; a sissy; mother's darling = mother's boy; Mother's (or Mothers') Day orig. U.S., a day on which mothers are particularly honoured: in the U.S., the second Sunday in May; in Britain = Mothering Sunday; also attrib.; mother's help, a person who helps a mother, mainly by looking after children; mothers' meeting, a meeting (usually weekly) of mothers (of the working classes) connected with a parish or congregation, for the purpose of receiving instruction and counsel; also fig.; mother's milk (see milk n. 1 c); mother's pet = pet n.1 2 a; also, the youngest child of a family; mother's ruin slang, gin (cf. ruin n. 10); Mothers' Union, an organization for mothers to meet together regularly. Also, (every) mother's son, mother's child († in ME. moder bern), daughter = (every) person.
a1225St. Marher. 2 Ha..walde ȝeorne ȝef godes wille were þæt ha moste beon an of þe moder bern þæt so muche drohen for drihtin. 1896A. Lang Monk of Fife i. 3 Of me, in our country speech, it used to be said that I was ‘a mother's bairn’.
1861Mayhew London Labour (1862) Extra vol. 245/2 My husband..can't do nothink but give the babies a dose of ‘Mother's Blessing’ (that's laudanum, sir, or some sich stuff) to sleep 'em when they's squally. 1880F. Stevenson Let. July in J. Pope-Hennessy R. L. Stevenson (1974) vii. 142 Louis is, as I know, a mother's boy..and I am sure he looks like you. 1924D. H. Lawrence Phoenix II (1968) 619 Oh, women, beware the mother's boy! 1945‘L. Lewis’ Birthday Murder (1951) ii. 26 Stan's happy as he is being supported by his mother. He's a mother's boy. 1973W. J. Burley Death in Salubrious Place ii. 42 Mother's boy—that's his trouble, but it takes all sorts.
1857Lytton What will he do with It? (1859) I. i. i. 7 He looked like a mother's darling—perhaps he was one. 1922Joyce Ulysses 33 That knockkneed mother's darling. 1936‘J. Tey’ Shilling for Candles iv. 41 Mother's darlings had those eyes; so, sometimes, had womanizers.
1675Cotton Burlesque upon B. 147 Ladies! thou (Paris) moov'st my laughter, They'r Deities ev'ry Mothers Daughter.
1908Congr. Rec. 9 May 5971/1 Resolved, That Sunday, May 10, 1908, be recognized as Mothers' Day. 1926A. Huxley Jesting Pilate iv. 264 In the First Methodist Church..they were going to distribute ‘Mother's Day Flowers to all Worshippers’. (On Mother's Day you must wear a red carnation if your mother is alive, a white one if she is dead.) 1958Listener 27 Nov. 874/1 As uniquely and inimitably American as John Foster Dulles or Mothers' Day. 1959I. & P. Opie Lore & Lang. Schoolch. xii. 242 In 1956 the majority of High Street shops [in Britain] were displaying ‘Mother's Day’ gifts in their windows. 1962Listener 12 Apr. 628/1 Last Mother's Day—a retail selling device imported from the United States—the flower-shops were as busy as ice-cream vans during a heat wave.
1881Instr. Census Clerks (1885) 30 Mother's Help. 1908A. S. M. Hutchinson Once aboard Lugger i. vii. 41 She is not exactly my friend; she is my—my employer. I'm a mother's-help. 1961Evening Standard 14 July 25/5 (Advt.), A Mother's Help..for happy family.
1865C. M. Yonge Clever Woman II. xxx. 312 The mothers' meetings for the soldiers' wives. 1887‘Edna Lyall’ Knt. Errant (1889) 282, I was trying to get the Mothers'-Meeting accounts right. 1925Fraser & Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 159 Mother's meeting, an occasional name among bluejackets for the captain's address to a ship's company. 1946D. Hamson We fell among Greeks xviii. 195, I noticed one particular squad which was openly idling... ‘Why do you stop work and hold a mother's meeting when I go away?’
1824J. Mactaggart Scottish Gallovidian Encycl. 348 Mithers-pet, the youngest child of a family; the mother's greatest favourite; the Tony Lumpkin of the house. 1830A. Picken Dominie's Legacy I. 104 He was..as raw looking, overgrown, gawky a youth, as any mother's pet of a student. 1937Partridge Dict. Slang 535/1 Mother's ruin. 1955P. Jones Birthday Honours i. 10, I have been to a party, darling... What would you like? ‘Mother's Ruin’? 1970New Scientist 23 Apr. 165/2 Gin, as shown by the old temperance demonstration of dropping earthworms into adjacent glasses of water and mother's ruin, can certainly eliminate unwanted planarians.
1888Mrs. G. Sumner To Mothers of Higher Classes vi. 55 The ‘Mothers' Union’, now started in the Winchester Diocese, and in other Dioceses, is a very simple plan. 1972L. Lamb Picture Frame xiv. 123, I shall have to run a mothers' union or something.
†b. The uninflected genitive survived late in Sc. in certain combinations, as mother-brother, mother sister, a maternal uncle or aunt; mother half, motherside = mother's side (with reference to descent). Obs.
1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 70/2 This thamar was Absalons suster by the moder syde. a1500Burgh Lawis xcviii. (1868) 48 That ayre..sal be in yemsell of his frendis on the mudyr-half. 1513in Fam. Rose of Kilravock (Spalding Club) 183 Valter Ross of Kinstary moder broder to the said vmquhile Archibalde. a1578Lindesay (Pitscottie) Chron. Scot. (S.T.S.) II. 175 Thair captane Monsr de Gwise our quens mother brother. 1596Dalrymple tr. Leslie's Hist. Scot. ix. 181 He was the kingis mother brother. 1622Mabbe tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf. ii. 184 His kinswoman by the mother-side. 1678Wedderburn's Vocab. 11 (Jam.) Avunculus, the mother-brother. Ibid., Matertera, the mother-sister. 1768Boswell Corsica ii. (ed. 2) 58 Being uncle by the mother-side to Eurysthenes.
17. Special comb.:
a. attrib. (and genitive), mother-alkali, alkali obtained from the mother-liquor left after crystallization; mother-and-baby home, an establishment serving as a maternity home for unmarried mothers, usu. with pre- and post-natal services; mother-bomb (see quot. 1971); † mother-borough = mother-city (a); mother-cell Biol., a cell which later undergoes cell division and gives rise to daughter-cells; spec. a cell which later undergoes meiotic division; mother-child a., of or pertaining to a mother and her child; mother-city, (a) = metropolis in various senses; (b) a city regarded as serving as a mother to someone; mother-clove (see quot. 1866); mother coal, mineral charcoal; mother complex, a complex (see complex 3) about one's mother; mother-cult, the worship of a mother-goddess; mother-daughter a., of or pertaining to a mother and her daughter; † mother descent, descent by the mother's side; mother-feryer U.S. slang = mother-fucker; mother figure, a person or thing endowed with some of the attributes of a mother; mother fit = ‘fit of the mother’, a hysteric attack; mother fixation, a fixation (see fixation 3 b) on one's mother; mother-fucker coarse slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.), a base, despicable person; someone or something that is very unpleasant; hence mother-fucking ppl. a., despicable, base; unpleasant; = bloody a. 10; mother gate Coal-mining [gate n.2] (see quot. 1860); mother-grabbing ppl. a. (U.S. slang) = mother-fucking ppl. adj.; mother idea [= F. idée mère], the fundamental idea (of something, e.g. of an institution, a literary work); mother image, imago, the mental or realized image of an idealized or archetypal mother; mother-in (or and)-babe, used attrib. to designate a wooden bobbin, the hollow shank of which contains another smaller bobbin; mother liquid, liquor = the liquid left after crystallization, e.g. of sea-salt; mother-lode Min., the principal vein of ore; also fig.; mother-loving ppl. a., (a) that loves one's mother; (b) = mother-fucking ppl. adj.; freq. used as a vague intensive; mother-lye, the mother-liquor of an alkali; mother maid, -maiden, the Virgin Mary; mother mark (? obs.), mother's mark, a nævus; mother mould Sculpture, a rigid mould which holds casting material; mother pian = mamma pian; mother plane orig. U.S., an aircraft which launches or controls another aircraft; mother plant, (a) a parent plant from which other plants have been derived; (b) the female or seed-bearing parent of a hybrid (B. D. Jackson Gloss. Bot. Terms 1900); mother queen = queen-mother; also applied to a queen-bee; mother-raper U.S. slang = mother-fucker; mother-raping ppl. a. (U.S. slang) = mother-fucking ppl. adj.; mother right, (a) = matriarchy; (b) the custom by which dynastic succession passes only in the female line; mother ship, (a) a ship or airship escorting or having charge of a number of other, usu. smaller, craft; also transf.; (b) an aircraft or rocket from which another aircraft or rocket is launched or controlled; = mother plane; mother sick a., pining for one's mother (cf. mammy-sick); mother skein, ‘a continuous ribbon-like figure of chromatin in the early stages of nuclear division’ (B. D. Jackson); mother-son a., of or pertaining to a mother and her son; † mother spar, the matrix of an ore; mother spot = mother's mark; mother star = monaster; mother stone, (a) the matrix of a mineral; also, a stone from which other minerals are derived by structural or chemical change; (b) see quot. 1770–4; mother substitute, surrogate, a person or thing that takes the place of the mother; † mother suppository, a suppository for the womb, a pessary; mother-symbol, that which is symbolic of the mother or of motherhood; mother thought = mother idea; mother tincture, in Homœopathy, a pure undiluted tincture of a drug; mother-to-be, an expectant mother; † mother wasp (see quot.); mother-water = mother-liquor; mother wool (see quot.); mother yaw = mamma pian.
1880J. Lomas Alkali Trade 244 ‘Weak’ or ‘*mother’ alkali is a fine powdery substance.
1965Hall & Howes Church in Social Work v. 90 The county council was running its own *mother and baby home. 1972Guardian 14 July 11/2 Miss McM will not consider going into a mother and baby home and is against adoption.
1971New Scientist 21 Jan. 135/2 Shrapnel grenades..are dropped individually, or in clusters from canisters (‘*mother-bombs’).
a1225Leg. Kath. 46 Þe *moder burh of Alexandres riche.
1845Encycl. Metrop. VII. 239/1 This may depend either upon the walls of the *mother-cell having been originally thicker, or [etc.]. 1875Bennett & Dyer Sachs' Bot. 440 The pollen-grains, when free from their mother-cells, are unicellular and spherical. 1875Mother-cell [see Ascomycetes]. 1920W. E. Agar Cytology vii. 212 The diagrams start with the pollen mother-cell in the male and the embryo-sac mother-cell in the female—in each case the last cell generation of the diploid phase. 1932C. D. Darlington Rec. Adv. Cytol. i. 5 In a ‘mother-cell’ two nuclear divisions follow one another rapidly while the chromosomes only divide once. 1959W. Andrew Textbk. Compar. Histol. xii. 486 Earlier workers believed this cell to be a mother cell for the successive groups of spermatogonia.
1937H. Read Art & Society v. 191 At first these instincts are concentrated on the mother, and any being that threatens to interfere with the *mother-child bond incurs the child's enmity. 1963Auden Dyer's Hand 440 The mother-child relationship..stands for the kind of love that is unaffected by time.
1563–87Foxe A. & M. (1596) 10/2 Bishops of the *mother citie and archbishops were all one. 1575–85Abp. Sandys Serm. viii. 132 The mother Citie of the Realme is reasonably furnished with faithfull preachers. 1908Westm. Gaz. 4 Aug. 5/1 Capetown..is in the truest sense the µητρόπολις of South Africa, the ‘mother-city’ from which the rest have sprung. 1935L. MacNeice Poems 20 See Belfast... This was my mother-city, these my paps... I cannot be Anyone else than what this land engendered me.
1690Blancard Lex. Med. 41 Anthophylli{ddd}Angl. *Mother cloves. 1693A. van Leeuwenhoek in Phil. Trans. XVII. 952, I chose some of the largest Cloves I could find, called Mother-Cloves. 1866Treas. Bot., Mother cloves, a name in the East for the fully expanded flower-buds of Caryophyllus aromaticus.
1873Dawson Earth & Man vi. 118 A dusty fibrous substance, like charcoal, called ‘*mother⁓coal’ by miners.
1919M. K. Bradby Psycho-Analysis v. 59 If sexual fixation takes place at the third stage, the ‘*mother-complex’ will create an obstacle to a man's happiness in married life. 1924Spectator 16 Aug. 229/1, I got a mother-complex. 1936C. Day Lewis Friendly Tree i. vi. 87 He sucks a pipe constantly. The mother-complex. Infantilism. 1948Yearbk. Psychoanal. IV. 172 (title) The mother complex in literature. 1960R. F. C. Hull tr. Jung's Structure & Dynamics of Psyche in Coll. Wks. (1966) VIII. v. 369 Analysis shows an infantile longing for the mother, a so-called mother complex.
1909Westm. Gaz. 2 Feb. 5/1 From the trend of recent writings in Hindu literature it is suggested that the *Mother cult has been revived.
1969C. Fremlin Possession ii. 17 The closeness of the *mother-daughter relationship. 1974― By Horror Haunted 138 An ordinary, typical mother-daughter misunderstanding.
1642Fuller Holy & Prof. St. iv. xv. 313 Her royall birth by her Fathers side doth comparatively make her *Mother-descent seem low.
1946Mezzrow & Wolfe Really Blues 4 A *motherferyer that would cut your throat for looking.
1953New Biol. XIV. 29 In birds, for instance, we have the astonishing phenomenon called imprinting, by which the sign stimulus of the IRM to follow a *mother-figure differentiates. 1957Economist 7 Sept. 821/2 The commonest illusion..is that the United Nations is a miraculous mother-figure which will give suck and shelter to all comers. 1970Daily Tel. 22 Sept. 14 Mrs Meir is both a superb politician and a Jewish mother-figure which the young State [of Israel] may well need. 1971Ibid. 18 Jan. 10/7 The association also says there should be a ‘mother figure’ in each nursing school to whom students can turn for advice.
1657P. Henry Diary & Lett. (1882) 65 *Mother-fits. 1681Grew Musæum i. i. 4 A Thong hereof ty'd about the middle, is of good use..especially against Mother-Fits.
1921Internat. Jrnl. Psychoanal. II. 55 Jesus is no longer satisfied to make Joseph his ideal (a hard task for a boy with a strong *Mother-fixation of love). 1954Scott. Jrnl. Theol. VII. 393 Rationalism has handed the problem [of worship] over to the psychologist to explain in terms of repressions, mother-fixations, infantile-regressions and the like. 1969C. Allen Textbk. Psychosexual Disorders (ed. 2) xvii. 375 Sailors usually carry..the mother's photograph... There is strong mother-fixation in their choice of prostitutes.
1956Amer. Speech XXXI. 111 This linguistic vacuum is being filled by a new obscenity symbol, *mother-fucker. 1960J. Baldwin in Partisan Rev. Spring 292 You've got to fight with the elevator boy because the motherf*****'s white! 1970R. D. Abrahams Positively Black ii. 45 I'm one motherfucker that don't mind dying. 1971B. W. Aldiss Soldier Erect 142 Jock..looked up into my face. ‘The bastards, the fucking mean scab-devouring mankey-minded shower of mother-fuckers!’ 1971J. Mandelkau Buttons xiii. 149 These mother-fuckers had been whining they had no food to sell the people—and this place was stacked! 1973Black Panther 21 July 16/1 We will kill any motherfucker that stands in the way of our freedom.
1959N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 351 They could smash some *mother-f―ing Reds. 1968Rat 13–16 May 10/2 The police were interminably long in getting into Math. Good mother-fucking barricades. 1969P. Roth Portnoy's Complaint 106 You muff-diving, mother-fucking son of a bitch! 1974S. Ellin Stronghold 23 ‘You motherfucking black clown,’ Harvey says without heat, ‘nothing is changed.’
1839Penny Cycl. XV. 247 When the bord or ‘*mother-gate’ has proceeded some distance on both sides of the pit [etc.]. 1860Eng. & For. Min. Gloss (Newc. Terms), Mothergate, the bord along which the coals are trammed from a district of workings.
1959M. Russ Half Moon Haven (1961) i. 60 There isn't one item on this *mother-grabbing planet that I ‘like’.
1858O. W. Holmes Aut. Breakf.-t x, There is a *mother-idea in each particular kind of tree, which, if well marked, is probably embodied in the poetry of every language.
1941L. MacNeice Poetry of W. B. Yeats vii. 138 It would be tempting to regard Cathleen ni Houlihan, the Poor Old Woman, as a *mother image and so to refer much of Irish nationalism to a mother-fixation. 1968C. Rycroft Crit. Dict. Psychoanal. 93 Conceptions of the mother existing in the infant's mind formed by splitting of the mother image. 1973J. Singer Boundaries of Soul iv. 91 The Mother image appeared under strange circumstances to my analysand Margaret.
1916B. M. Hinkle tr. Jung's Psychol. of Unconscious v. 250 That amount of libido which unconsciously is fastened to the *mother-imago. 1956R. F. C. Hull tr. Jung's Symbols of Transformation in Coll. Wks. V. ii. v. 222 The water and tree symbolism..likewise refer to the libido that is unconsciously attached to the mother-imago.
1919T. Wright Romance Lace Pillow xiii. 126 *Mother-in-Babe Bobbins, in the hollowed shank of which a tiny wooden bobbin rattles. 1928G. Whiting Tools & Toys of Stitching 220 The Cow-and-Calf and Mother-and-Babe bobbins—they are a perfect, never-ending joy and a masterpiece of the Midlands! 1969E. H. Pinto Treen xxi. 311 Collectively, they are known as church window bobbins, but those with smaller bobbins inside the windows are described as mother-in-babe types.
1839Ure Dict. Arts 1133 The more of the crystalline particles are drained from the metallic bath, the richer does the *mother liquid become in silver.
1796Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) II. 362 The *mother liquor poured off. 1890Abney Photogr. (ed. 6) 73 The mother liquor may be employed for intensifying.
c1882J. H. Beadle Western Wilds xxxiv. 561 What miners call a ‘*mother lode’ is often like a tree in its upward development: below is the main trunk, above the branches diverge. 1927B. A. McKelvie Black Canyon p. vi, They started up-stream in search of the mother-lode. 1960Encounter XIV. iii. 74 The pages of the T.L.S. were the very mother-lode of academic inanity. 1965G. J. Williams Econ. Geol. N.Z. v. 58/1 The mother-lode that had been envisaged as the source of the gold in the Blue⁓spur ‘cement’. 1972Times Lit. Suppl. 25 Feb. 219/1 It is mother lode, with rich ore; but it lacks the refining that the author intended to give it.
1964O. E. Middleton in C. K. Stead N.Z. Short Stories (1966) 198 We'd all be drawing the dole like every other *mother-loving beach⁓comber. 1969‘J. Morris’ Fever Grass i. 6 Get her out of that mother-lovin' joint an' into the cab.
1800Med. Jrnl. III. 82 These *mother-leys still contain a certain quantity of caustic soda. c1865Circ. Sci. I. 331/2 The fluid from which crystals are precipitated is called mother-lye.
1612Donne Progr. Soul, 2nd Anniv. 341 Where thou shalt see the blessed *Mother-maid.
c1425St. Mary of Oignies ii. viii. in Anglia VIII. 173 Lyke a childe soukynge þe pappes of þe *moder-mayden.
1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XII. 615/2 Nævus, a mole on the skin, generally called a *mother's mark. 1822–34Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) IV. 536 These [moles] differ essentially from nævi or genuine mother marks. 1884Encycl. Brit. XVII. 163/1 It is often congenital, hence the term ‘mother's mark’, or it may appear in early childhood.
1898C. R. Ashbee tr. Cellini's Treat. Goldsmithing & Sculpture 116 Put them into the cavities..in the mould... Or ‘*mother mould’ as the sculptors would call it. 1947J. C. Rich Materials & Methods of Sculpture v. 100 A heavily bodied plaster mix can be applied over the agar impression to form a mother mold or casing. 1969R. Mayer Dict. Art Terms & Techniques 254/1 Mother mold, an outer case or container for a negative mold made of gelatin, rubber, or another weak, flexible substance. The mother mold is made of a rigid material.
1898*Mother-pian [see mamma1 e].
1936Sun (Baltimore) 6 July 9/1 Progress on the pick-a-back airplane, a combination in which a ‘*mother’ plane will carry on its back a smaller long range seaplane for ‘launching’ at high altitude is more secret. 1945Time 19 Nov. 52/2 Everything it sees is projected by radio on a screen in the mother plane. 1962Daily Tel. 10 Sept. 18/4 The ‘mother’ plane would carry pick-a-back a plane which would be launched at the fringe of space.
1655–87H. More App. Antid. (1712) 211 Now this regular conformation of the Seed came from the uniform motion of particles in the *Mother-plant. 1707Mortimer Husb. (1721) II. 48, I think those raised by Layers from a Mother-plant make the best Trees. 1868Darwin Anim. & Pl. xxvii. II. 365 Foreign pollen occasionally affects the mother-plant in a direct manner.
1591Troub. Reigne K. John ii. 55 The *Mother Queene she taketh on amisse Gainst Ladie Constance. 1595Shakes. John ii. i. 62 With him along is come the Mother Queene. 1816Kirby & Sp. Entomol. xviii. (1818) II. 117 When the mother-queen was removed, several of the small females contended for the cell with indescribable rage.
1966C. Himes Heat's On iii. 30 Some *mother-raper is shooting at me with water-melon seeds. Ibid. ii. 22 The dirty mother-raping white nigger! 1969Mother-raping [see cock-sucking ppl. adj. s.v. cock n.1 23].
1885*Mother right [see matriarchy]. 1907Q. Rev. July 195 Matriarchy, or rule of the mother, is not to be confused with mother-right, or rule through the mother.
1890Pall Mall G. 2 June 2/1 In the case of the picket-boats, they should be entirely independent of a *mother-ship. 1902H. C. Fyfe Submarine Warfare v. 108 A wire⁓less message..has been sent to the commander of the ‘mother ship’. 1903Daily Chron. 10 Jan. 5/1 The torpedo gunboat Hazard, which was stationed at Barrow to act as ‘mother-ship’ to the five tiny diving torpedo-boats. 1909Q. Rev. Oct. 575 Depôt ships for destroyers, mother-ships for submarines, and oil-supply vessels. 1922Encycl. Brit. XXX. 17/2 Scouts were flown off lighters at sea against airships, and off the decks of battleships and ‘mother’ ships. 1926H. T. Wilkins Marvels Mod. Mech. 215 An engineer, aboard the airship, opened the telescopic apparatus which left the aeroplane swaying in space some 60 feet below the mother ship. 1938Flight 8 Sept. 197/1 They [sc. engineers] designed for catapult launch from a mother ship;..they used diesel engines. 1946in Amer. Speech (1947) XXII. 230/2 The Navy's drones will be sent into the cloud by one mother ship. 1962J. Tunstall Fishermen ii. 46 The fleet of catching vessels transfers its fish..to a mother ship, which processes and freezes the fish at sea. 1967Times Rev. Industry Apr. 48/3 Trailers, operating from the central plant and acting as ‘mother ships’ to the delivery vans, can replace the depots. 1969Observer 20 July 7/3 After it has docked with the mother ship the astronauts will spend four hours going over every inch of the LEM. 1973Sci. Amer. Nov. 23/1 The small ‘killer’ satellites in a ‘mother ship’ equipped with central guidance and detection devices. On command the mother ship would have oriented itself and determined when, at what rate and in what direction to launch its subsatellites.
1759S. Fielding C'tess of Dellwyn I. 112 In fact, she was Husband-sick in a Manner the very reverse of what is generally termed *Mother-sick; for Girls are so called when they pine on being separated from their Mothers.
1927B. Malinowski Sex & Repression in Savage Society ii. iii. 100 Not one single case of *mother-son incest could be found. 1949M. Mead Male & Female xvi. 326 A mother-son combination is classified as bad for the son.
1681Grew Musæum iii. i. v. 306 The *Mother-Spar of the Tin-Ore.
1690Blancard Lex. Med. 388 Macula Matricalis..Angl. The *mother spot. 1849Craig, Mother-spots. 1889*Mother star [see monaster].
1442in Willis & Clark Cambridge (1886) I. 386 Cariage of xviij lodis of *modrestone. 1770–4A. Hunter Georg. Ess. (1803) I. 506 It's abounding with the stone, called in Hertfordshire, mother-stone (a concretion of many small blue pebbles). 1796Kirwan Elem. Min. (ed. 2) I. 433 Granite..is the mother-stone, by whose fusion basalt is produced. 1799J. Robertson Agric. Perth 17 Which some farmers call motherstone soil. 1855J. R. Leifchild Cornwall Mines 91 Quartz generally prevails in the matrix (mother stone).
1943J. S. Huxley Evolutionary Ethics ii. 16 The absence in the infant's life of a mother or effective *mother-substitute during the crucial period from about one to three years old. 1965F. Sargeson Memoirs of Peon vi. 173 Two young sparrow-legged ruffians..engaged in selling my mother-substitute a large trolley-load of empty bottles.
1578Lyte Dodoens i. lxxxviii. 130 Pessarie (whiche is a *mother suppositorie).
1959Science 21 Aug. 422/3 We took the calculated risk of constructing and using inanimate *mother surrogates rather than real mothers. 1969E. Stotland Psychol. of Hope viii. 126 Cloth-covered objects..appear to satisfy a need for contact and closeness; the babies cling to these mother surrogates while they do not cling to those made of uncovered wire.
1956R. F. C. Hull tr. Jung's Symbols of Transformation in Coll. Wks. V. 301 At this stage the *mother-symbol..points towards the unconscious as the creative matrix of the future.
1861Motley in Corr. (1889) I. 368 As to the *mother-thought of the book, it is to me original.
1902Encycl. Brit. XXIX. 312/2 The pure tinctures are denominated ‘*mother tinctures’. 1906W. De Morgan Joseph Vance xvi. 149 She makes some concession to my feelings on the subject of High Dilutions, and (at great risk to myself, she says) allows me to have Mother-Tinctures.
1960C. Dale Spring of Love i. 26 She would take a magazine..and reread..Sister Jane's advice to *mothers-to-be. 1973A. Morice Death & Dutiful Daughter vii. 68 Has our little mother-to-be surfaced yet?
1679M. Rusden Further Discov. Bees 4 The Male among Wasps, which some call the *Mother-Wasp, stings more venemously than the common Wasp doth.
1758Reid tr. Macquer's Chym. I. 245 All saline solutions in general, after having yielded a certain quantity of crystals, grow thick, and refuse to part with any more, though they still contain much Salt. They are called *Mother-waters. 1854J. Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sci., Chem. 14 To clear away from any crystalline product the mother-water.
1727–41Chambers Cycl. s.v. Wool, The French and English usually separate each fleece into three sorts; viz. 1. *Mother-wool, which is that of the back and neck.
1822–34Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) II. 433 The master fungus being named [in St. Domingo] the mama-pian or *mother yaw.
b. Phrasal combinations with of: † mother of amethyst, ? = blue John 2; mother of anchovies, the scad or horse-mackerel, Trachurus saurus; mother of cloves = mother clove (see 17 a); mother of coal = mother coal (see 17 a); Mother of Commonwealths U.S., Virginia; † mother of emeralds (see quot.); † mother of gold, a mineral supposed to indicate the presence of gold (quot. 1596 identifies the word with mother n.2); mother of the herrings (see herring 1 c); mother of millions, the ivy-leaved toad-flax, Cymbalaria muralis; † mother of the mine (see quot.); mother of (the) months, the moon; Mother of Parliaments, (a) England; (b) the British Parliament; Mother of Presidents U.S., (a) Virginia; (b) Ohio; Mother of States U.S., (a) Connecticut; (b) Virginia; mother of thousands, (a) = mother of millions; (b) the common daisy, Bellis perennis; (c) Saxifraga sarmentosa; (d) the double blue creeping campanula (Britten & Holl.); (e) = helxine; mother of wheat (see quot.); mother of the wood, ‘the Asperula odorata’ (Syd. Soc. Lex. 1891); mother of yaws = mother yaw (Ibid.).
1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) XII. 79/1 What we call amethyst root, or *mother of amethyst, is but a sparry fluor, of which we have plenty in Derbyshire.
1668Charleton Onomasticon 143 Trachurus..the *Mother of Anchovies.
1727–52Chambers Cycl. s.v. Clove, *Mother of cloves. 1867W. W. Smyth Coal & Coal-mining 34 Soft mineral charcoal or ‘mother-of-coal’.
1879Congress. Rec. 10 Jan. 413/2 To pour out the vials of his impotent wrath upon the ‘*Mother of Commonwealths’.
1797Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3) VI. 567/2 Hence the green cochle spar brought from Egypt may have obtained the name of *mother of emeralds.
1596Raleigh Discov. Guiana To Rdr., In Guiana..the rocks..are in effect thorow-shining..which being tried to be no Marcasite..but are no other then El [sic] madre del oro..the *mother of golde, or as it is saide by others the scum of golde. 1712E. Cooke Voy. S. Sea 26, I am of Opinion there is also Gold in the Island because we took up the Mother of Gold in several places by the Water-side.
1836A. E. Bray Tamar & Tavy I. xviii. 318 *Mother of millions, with its numerous small drooping flowers.
1794W. Hutchinson Hist. Cumbld. I. Catal. Anim. etc. 52 Heterogeneous Iron Ores, Calx of Iron, mixed with calcareous earth. Sparry Iron Ore... Miners call it *mother of the mine.
1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 13 The silent Moone; which..is Queene of the Night,..*Mother of moneths. 1820Shelley Witch of Atlas 73 Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent Her bow beside the folding-star.
1865J. Bright in Birmingham Daily Post 19 Jan. 5/1 We may be proud of this, that England is the ancient country of Parliaments... England is the *mother of Parliaments. 1910Encycl. Brit. VII. 15/1 The early date at which the principle of self-government was established in England, the steady growth of the principle, the absence of civil dissension, and the preservation in the midst of change of so much of the old organization, have given its constitution a great influence over the ideas of politicians in other countries. This fact is expressed in the proverbial phrase—‘England is the mother of parliaments’. 1918Daily Mirror 12 Nov. 6/2 Never has the Mother of Parliaments seen such a scene of enthusiasm as when Mr. Lloyd George read out the armistice terms yesterday. 1926Fowler Mod. Eng. Usage 548/1 Mother of Parliaments (British Parliament). 1974Times 24 Aug. 2/4 France Soir..went on to explain why in the country of the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ social tension has grown.
1827A. Sherwood Gaz. Georgia 98 James Monroe..was born in Va., the *mother of Presidents. 1897Chicago Record 8 Mar. 4/1 Ohio may claim to take rank with Virginia as a ‘mother of presidents’. 1904N.Y. Tribune 12 June 8 Virginia concluded not to indorse any candidate. The ‘Mother of Presidents’ is a trifle particular. 1948Chicago Daily News 21 Apr. 1/5 Ohio is the mother of Presidents, and Taft is one of her sons.
1834W. A. Caruthers Kentuckian in N.Y. ii. 195 Virginia has been the *mother of states. 1838Yale Lit. Mag. III. 86 To thee, Mother of States! to thee, good old Connecticut, do our praises most belong. 1855Southern Lit. Messenger XXI. 675/1 Virginia..[was] hailed as ‘the Mother of States’.
[1731P. Miller Gardeners Dict. s.v. Linaria, The first of these Plants [sc. common yellow toad-flax] grows in great Plenty upon the Sides of dry Banks in most Parts of England and is seldom cultivated in Gardens, for it is a very troublesome Plant to keep within Bounds, the roots being very apt to spread under-ground, and rise at a great Distance from the Mother Plant, whereby it greatly injures whatever Plants stand near it. ]1855A. Pratt Flowering Plants & Ferns Gt. Brit. IV. 126 This plant [sc. Linaria cymbalaria] is familiarly known to many persons by the name of *Mother of Thousands.
1866Treas. Bot. 684/1 Linaria Cymbalaria, Ivy-leaved Toadflax or *Mother-of-thousands, is frequent on..old garden walls. 1910T. W. Sanders Window & Indoor Gardening xi. 111 Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums..make delightful basket plants... So, too, [do] Saxifraga sarmentosa (Mother-o'-Thousands or Wandering Jew). 1952A. R. Clapham et al. Flora Brit. Is. 713 H[elxine] soleirolii Req. Mind-your-own-business, Mother of thousands... Naturalized on walls and damp banks. 1958N. & Q. Sept. 411/2 Have your readers ever heard of a plant called ‘Mother of Thousands’ or ‘Wandering Sailor’? Ibid. Oct. 452/1 Mother of thousands... I believe this plant is Saxifraga sarmentosa. Ibid. Nov. 488/2 ‘Mother of thousands’... The name is given to the Ivy-leaved Toad-flax which is also known as ‘Mother of Millions’. 1961Countryman LVIII. iii. 547 Mother of-thousands (ivy-leaved toadflax). 1971K. G. Messenger Flora of Rutland 69/1 S[oleirolia] soleirolii... Mother-of-Thousands... Pavements, Uppingham, 1961... Intrusive alien. 1975Times 22 Nov. 10/5 The elegant climber..the mother of thousands..produces small plantlets on thread-like runners.
1876Hardwicke's Science Gossip 39 Veronica hederifolia is named by farmers [near Kelso] the ‘*mother-of-wheat’.
Senses 3 d–f in Dict. become 3 e–g. Add: [I.] [3.] d. A brothel-keeper. Chiefly as a title of courtesy.
1785Grose Dict. Vulgar Tongue, Mother, or the Mother, a bawd. 1803G. Colman John Bull iii. ii. 36 Mary. The unfortunate must look up to such a lady, sure, as a mother. Shuffleton. She has acquired that appellation. c1810W. Hickey Mem. (1960) 56 The third brothel was kept by Mother Cocksedge, for all the Lady Abbesses were dignified with the respectable title of Mother. 1973G. Greene Honorary Consul i. iii. 96 It must be better than life at Mother Sanchez. 1980E. Jong Fanny ii. v. 207, I enter'd Mother Coxtart's House once more.
[e.] (Further examples.)
1930Amer. Speech V. 468 Theatrical rooming house—Diggings or diggs. Mother (proprietress of same)—Ma. 1953J. G. Moore in Cassidy & Le Page Dict. Jamaican Eng. (1967) 306/1 Mother = crowned shepherdess—the highest female office [in a Revival religious group]. 1975Times 27 Feb. 14/8 Believe it or not, there is [in the CIA] a Mother, whose office..is guarded by young men in grey flannel suits. 1979Daily Mail 8 Sept. 17/4 Mother, senior secretary. 1983Times 17 Dec. 2/2 Miss Joanna Davies, mother of the NUJ chapel (chairman of the office branch).
▪ II. mother, n.2|ˈmʌðə(r)|
[Corresponds in meaning to MDu. moeder, moer (in mod.Du. moer), G. mutter, identical in form and gender with the equivalent of mother n.1
Comparison with the synonymous It., Sp. madre scum of liquids, F. mère (de vinaigre), OF. mere ‘vendange pressée’ (= sense 3 below), seems to show that this word, in Eng., Du., and Ger., is really an application of mother n.1 The transition of sense is difficult to explain; but most probably the scum or dregs of distilled waters and the like was regarded as being a portion of the ‘mother’ or original crude substance which had remained mixed with the refined product, from which in course of time it separated itself. (The term may possibly have belonged originally to the vocabulary of alchemy.) An explanation sometimes given, that ‘mother of vinegar’ was so called on account of its effect in promoting acetous fermentation, does not agree with the history of the use. It has been pointed out that Gr. γραῦς, old woman, is used in the sense ‘scum, as of boiled milk’, but the coincidence is prob. accidental.
Most etymologists have regarded the word (with its Du. and Ger. equivalents) as altered by popular etymology from Du. modder masc., mud, mire (for which Middle Du. has a rare variant moeder, occurring chiefly in derivatives) = LG. modder, moder (whence mod.G. moder), HG. dial. motter masc. (for which a variant mutter occurs). This notion goes back to Kilian's (Du. or Flemish) dictionary of 1598, which contains the two following entries: (1) ‘Modder, moder, moyer, more, moer, limus, cœnum mollius, lutum, volutabrum; Ang. mire, mudde’; and (2) ‘Modder, moeyer, moeder, grondsoppe, fæx, fæces, crassamen, crassamentum; Ang. mother’. But there appears to be no evidence that the form modder was ever used for ‘mother’ or ‘scum’, nor is that sense recorded for Ger. dial. motter.]
†1. Dregs, scum. In the 16th c. examples always the dregs or scum of oil (chiefly rendering L. amurca); later applied chiefly to the scum rising to the surface of fermenting liquors. Obs.
1538Elyot Dict., Amurca, the mother or foam of all oyles. 1563T. Hill Art Garden. (1593) 31 The new mother or fome of oyle. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. ii. (1586) 69 Powre into a Platter the thickest mother of oile. 1600Surflet Country Farm iii. xlix. 529 Else your cyder will..growe couered with much white mother swimming aloft. 1601Holland Pliny II. 159 The mother or lees of oile oliue. 1609C. Butler Fem. Mon. x. L 5 The Meth in time wilbe covered with a mother. 1611Cotgr., Fleur du vin, the mother of wine; the white, or mouldie spots that float on the top of old wine. 1626Bacon Sylva §339 If the Body be liquid and not apt to putrefie totally, it will cast up a Mother in the Top; As the Mothers of Distilled Waters. 1676Grew Anat. Leaves i. vi. §4 The Cuticular and other Concretions, commonly called Mothers, in Distill'd Waters, Vinegar, and other Liquors. 1814Cary Dante, Paradise xii. 106 That, mouldy mother is, where late were lees. 1870Henfrey's Bot. (ed. 2) §558 Distribution [of filamentous Fungi or ‘Moulds’]. Universal,..occurring constantly in infusions of organic matter..as ‘mother’, producing various fermentations.
2. spec. (In full mother of vinegar.) A ropy mucilaginous substance produced in vinegar during the process of acetous fermentation (which it hastens) by a mould-fungus called Mycoderma aceti.
1601Holland Pliny II. 334 A pultesse made of beasts dung & the mother of vineger tempered together. 1676[see 1]. 1839Ure Dict. Arts 460 The slimy sediment of vinegar casks called mother. 1870Lowell Study Wind. (1871) 95 Unhappily the bit of mother from Swift's vinegar⁓barrel has had strength enough to sour all the rest [of Carlyle]. 1879Encycl. Brit. IX. 98/2 Mother of vinegar..is the ‘non-aerobiotic’ form of the mycoderma.
†3. mother of grapes: the solid mass of skins, etc., left after the expression of the juice by the winepress; = marc. Obs.
1611Cotgr., Espeé..a certaine round staffe, that lies betweene the vpper boords of a Vinepresse, and the mother, or substance of the grapes. 1694Motteux Rabelais v. vii, For fear there should still lurk some Juice among the Husks, and Hullings, in the Mother of the Grape. 1725Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Vinegar, To make strong Vinegar, dry the Mother of Grapes for the space of two Days.
▪ III. mother, v.1|ˈmʌðə(r)|
[f. mother n.1]
1. trans. To be the mother of, give birth to; in quots. fig., to be the source of, give rise to, produce.
1548Gest Pr. Masse A vj, This pryuate masse whych mothereth so manyfolde and haynouse vyces. 1850Blackie æschylus II. 189 But tears are vain, And weeping might but mother worser woe. 1900Nation (N.Y.) 15 Nov. 389/1 The historic college at Querétaro, which mothered the evangelization of so enormous a share of the North American wilderness.
2. a. To take care of or protect as a mother.
1863C. E. B. Work for All 68 You would like to take Lizzie Reed into our house, for a time, and mother her till something can be found for her. 1878Scribner's Mag. XV. 555/1 Some mothers ‘mother’ their children too much. 1894Mrs. H. Ward Marcella I. 127 Someone..will take up Marcella and mother her.
fig.1889Chicago Advance 21 Feb., The weak churches do feel deeply the need of brotherhood. They want to be mothered. 1899Baring-Gould Bk. of West I. xii. 208 Okehampton..is not fathered by the castle, nor mothered by the church.
b. Naut. in pass. Of a torpedo-boat: To be protected by a ‘mother’.
1901Blackw. Mag. Oct. 449 Torpedo craft could also be ‘mothered’.
3. To profess to be the mother of; to acknowledge (truly or falsely) the maternity of (a child).
1622Fletcher & Mass. Span. Curate v. iii, You Sir, that Would have me mother Bastards, being unable To honour me with one Child of mine owne. 1679W. Howell Medulla Hist. Angl. (1687) 284 That the Queen, to have put lady Elizabeth besides the Crown, would have mothered another bodies Child; but King Philip scorn'd to father it.
fig.1788A. Seward Lett. (1811) II. 41 The congenial rants which pretend to reply to them, are from the same pen, whoever Mr. Merry may persuade to mother them. 1840T. A. Trollope Summ. Brittany II. 370 It is evident throughout the country that ‘Our Lady’ was called on to mother every Pagan worship that could not be otherwise disposed of. 1884Pall Mall G. 12 June 4/2 Such books are translated by some humble hand, and fathered or mothered by another of some literary standing.
4. Const. on, upon.
a. lit. To attribute the maternity of (a child) to (a woman).
1542Udall Erasm. Apoph. 139 A childe mothered on a woman that neuer beare it, or a chaungelyng. 1888‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms (1890) 234 They must have changed her, and mothered the wrong child on the old woman.
b. fig. To attribute the authorship of (something) to (a woman); also, to ascribe the origin of (something) to something else.
1644J. Goodwin Innoc. Triumph. (1645) 35 That conception..is indifferently fathered, or mothered rather, upon them all. 1675Traherne Chr. Ethics 300 Which accident is wholly to be fathered on Adams fondness to please his wife, and to be mothered upon her lightness and credulity. 1831Fraser's Mag. IV. 11 [She] wrote the greater portion of a novel which was mothered on Miss Spence. 1907Blackw. Mag. May 668/2 Many venerable repartees were mothered on her.
5. To find a mother for (a lamb or calf). Also, to pick out from a flock the mother of (a particular lamb). Also intr., transf., and const. up, upon.
1844Stephens Bk. Farm II. 609 It is necessary when a lamb is left an orphan, or is supernumerary, to mother it, as it is termed, upon another ewe. 1888‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms xlviii, Mothering the calves, bailing up, leg-roping, and all the rest of it. 1889Zealandia I. 30 He pretended to give me every opportunity at ‘mothering’ (as it is called) my missing lambs, but for fifteen ewes I could find but four. 1890Cornh. Mag. Oct. 386, I was shepherding for Gasgarth, and his missus said to me, ‘Jem, mother that 'un,’ and I went reight intill middle o' t' flock and browt out t' mother on it. 1898― Rom. Canvass Town 92 It is vitally necessary to turn-out all the lambs and get them ‘mothered’ as soon as they are ‘tailed’. 1950N. Z. Jrnl. Agric. Sept. 197/3 All lambs can be properly mothered up before nightfall. Ibid. 202/1 Do not move the ewes until all the lambs have mothered. 1957New Biol. XXII. 101 Some lambs failed to ‘mother’ after treatment. 1961R. M. Patterson Buffalo Head iv. 134 At Bull Creek we stopped for a little while to give the calves a chance to ‘mother-up’; very soon every cow had her calf. 1962[see hay-bale (hay n.1 4)]. 1972Country Life 30 Mar. 812/3 Both lambs and ewes are marked with identical letters to facilitate shepherding, particularly the mothering up, at night, which is very important with winter lambing.
▪ IV. mother, v.2|ˈmʌðə(r)|
[f. mother n.2]
intr. To become mothery. Hence ˈmothering vbl. n.
1718Quincy Compl. Disp. 228 It's an insipid Phlegm..and will not keep long without mothering and stinking. 1728E. Smith Compl. Homew. (1750) 109 If your pickle mothers, boil it again. 1750Johnson Rambler No. 51 ⁋15 Her conserves mould, her wines sour, and pickles mother. 1863Fownes' Elem. Chem. (ed. 9) 481 Frequently a little sulphuric acid is afterwards added, with a view of checking further decomposition, or mothering.
▪ V. mother
obs. var. mauther dial., young girl. |