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单词 mother
释义

mothern.1int.

Brit. /ˈmʌðə/, U.S. /ˈməðər/
Forms: Old English medder (rare), Old English meder (dative, occasionally genitive), Old English moddor (rare), Old English modru (plural), Old English moeder (Anglian), Old English–Middle English modor, Old English–Middle English modra (plural), Old English–Middle English modur, Old English–1500s modyr, Old English–1600s moder, early Middle English moderr ( Ormulum), Middle English mader (transmission error), Middle English modder, Middle English modere, Middle English modern (transmission error), Middle English modier, Middle English modiere, Middle English modir, Middle English modire, Middle English modren (south-eastern, plural), Middle English modure, Middle English modyre, Middle English mooder, Middle English moodir, Middle English moodur, Middle English–1500s modre, late Middle English moþer, late Middle English–1500s mothir, late Middle English–1500s (1800s archaic) mothere, late Middle English– mother, 1500s moeder, 1500s–1600s moother, 1900s– muzzer (humorous); English regional 1700s– moother (chiefly Yorkshire), 1800s– mither (north-western), 1800s– mudder (north-western), 1800s– muther (midlands and northern), 1800s– muthor (north-eastern), 1900s– muddher (north-western), 2000s– mawthur (Cornwall); U.S. regional and nonstandard (chiefly in African-American usage) 1900s– motha, 1900s– mudder, 1900s– mudduh, 1900s– mutha, 1900s– muther; Caribbean 1900s– maada, 1900s– mada, 1900s– madda, 1900s– mudder; Scottish pre-1700 matheyr, pre-1700 modder, pre-1700 modere, pre-1700 modir, pre-1700 modire, pre-1700 modre, pre-1700 modyre, pre-1700 moider, pre-1700 mothere, pre-1700 mothir, pre-1700 mothyre, pre-1700 moþir, pre-1700 mouther, pre-1700 muder, pre-1700 mudir, pre-1700 mudre, pre-1700 mudyr, pre-1700 muther, pre-1700 muthir, pre-1700 mvddir, pre-1700 mvder, pre-1700 1700s– mither, pre-1700 1700s– mother, pre-1700 (1900s– northern and north-eastern) moder, pre-1700 (1900s– rare) modyr, 1800s medder (northern), 1800s mideer (northern), 1800s moeder (Shetland), 1800s– midder (northern and north-eastern); also Irish English 1700s–1800s moothar (southern), 1800s– moodher (southern), 1800s– moother (southern), 1900s– mither (northern), 1900s– morr (northern).
Origin: A word inherited from Germanic.
Etymology: Cognate with Old Frisian mōder (West Frisian moer ), Middle Dutch moeder , mōder (Dutch moeder ), Old Saxon mōdar , muoder (Middle Low German mōder , moeder ), Old High German muoter , muotir (Middle High German muoter , German Mutter ), Old Icelandic móðir , Old Swedish moþir (Swedish moder ), Danish moder , and further with Sanskrit mātṛ , mātar- , Avestan mātar- , ancient Greek (Doric) ματέρ- , μάτηρ , (Attic and Ionic) μητέρ- , μήτηρ , classical Latin māter ( > Old French madre , medre , Old French, Middle French mere , French mère , Old Occitan, Occitan maire , Catalan mare , Italian madre , Spanish madre , Portuguese mãe ), Gaulish mātīr , Early Irish māthir , Tocharian A mācar , Tocharian B mācer , Old Church Slavonic mati (genitive matere ), Russian mat′ , Latvian māte , Albanian motër (in sense ‘sister’), probably originally a derivative (with suffixation) of a nursery word of the ma type (see mama n.1).The change of postvocalic /d/ to /ð/ before syllabic /r/ or /ər/ (compare father n., hither adv., weather n., etc.) is first evidenced by spellings from the beginning of the 15th cent. The shortening of Middle English close ō to ŭ (giving modern English /ʌ/) is regular in the case of words in -ther , -der (compare brother n. and int., other pron. and n., rudder n.); E. J. Dobson Eng. Pronunc. 1500–1700 (ed. 2, 1968) II. §18 notes that most of the late 16th- and early 17th-cent. orthoepists who mention the word record pronunciations in ŭ . The form moother (with spelling reflecting the original long vowel although it may well have been shortened in pronunciation) persists in standard English into the 17th cent. In Old English the genitive singular normally coincided in form with the nominative mōdor (in some Anglian and late West Saxon texts forms showing extension of the mutated vowel from the dative singular are also attested). The unmarked genitive continues to occur commonly in Middle English. Genitive compounds before the 15th cent. are always found with the first element unmarked. Some early genitive compounds with the unmarked form survive to the present day, although no longer clearly apprehended as such (e.g. mother tongue n., mother wit n.). The analogical genitive in -s is attested early (compare Old English (Northumbrian) genitive forms mōderes , mōdres from the second half of the 10th cent. in the Lindisfarne Gospels), and had become standard (outside genitive compounds) by the end of the Middle English period. In Mother of God at sense 2a after post-classical Latin mater Dei (5th cent., in turn after Hellenistic Greek Θεοτόκος ). In sense 8 after post-classical Latin matrix womb (see matrix n.); compare also post-classical Latin mater in the same sense (see mater n.1). In sense 11 after post-classical Latin dura mater , pia mater (11th cent.; from 12th cent. in British sources: see dura mater n., pia mater n.).
I. Senses relating to human beings and animals.
1.
a. The female parent of a human being; a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth; (also, in extended use) a woman who undertakes the responsibilities of a parent towards a child, esp. a stepmother.Mother is frequently preceded by a possessive (as ‘my mother’) or used as a form of address (where, except occasionally in poetic language, my is commonly omitted); it is also used without possessive (e.g., in quot. 1930) in the manner of a proper name (this usage was, in the middle of the 19th cent., regarded as unfashionable or vulgar, and later as colloquial).As a form of address, mother now tends to be regarded as formal or archaic, while more colloquial equivalents, esp. mum n.2, mam n.1, and mom n., are preferred (see also mummy n.2, ma n.3, mama n.1, etc.).birth mother, foster-mother, surrogate mother: see the first element.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun]
mothereOE
dame?c1225
merea1275
childbearera1382
genitricea1500
mammy1523
dama1547
mama1555
genetrix1561
mam1570
mum?1595
old lady1599
authoressc1603
mam1608
genitress1610
old woman1668
old girl1745
mummy1768
momma1810
madre1815
maw1826
ma1829
marm1835
mater1843
mom1846
mommy1846
maternal1867
motherkins1870
muvver1871
mumsy1876
mamacita1887
mutti1905
birth mother1906
duchess1909
amma1913
momsey1914
mums1915
moms1925
mata1945
baby-mother1966
mama1982
old dear1985
baby-mama1986
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > one acting like mother
mothereOE
earth mother1962
motherer1974
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > stepmother
stepmotherc725
stepdamea1387
mother-in-law1516
motherc1546
noverka1600
step-parent1840
step1939
eOE Cleopatra Gloss. in W. G. Stryker Lat.-Old Eng. Gloss. in MS Cotton Cleopatra A.III (Ph.D. diss., Stanford Univ.) (1951) 314 Mater, anes cildes modor. Materfamilias, manigra cilda modur.
lOE tr. R. d'Escures Sermo in Festis Sancte Marie Virginis in R. D.-N. Warner Early Eng. Homilies (1917) 135 Þeh manege oðre habben mægeðhades weall,..þehhweðere ne mugen heo gehealde ne mægeðhade & modres beon, ne bearn geberen.
c1175 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 168 He beþ full off haliȝ gast Ȝet inn hiss moderr wambe.
c1225 (?c1200) St. Katherine (1973) 929 Of his feader soð godd, & of his moder soð mon.
a1325 (c1250) Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 1434 Ysaac..wunede ðor in ðogt and care For moderes dead.
1340 Ayenbite (1866) 67 (MED) Þis zenne is ine uele maneres ase..ine children aye hare uaderes and hare modren.
c1390 G. Chaucer Physician's Tale 93 Ye fadres and ye modres.
a1425 (a1400) Prick of Conscience (Galba & Harl.) (1863) 447 He was consayved synfully With-in his awen moder body.
c1440 (a1349) R. Rolle Eng. Prose Treat. (1921) 11 (MED) Honoure thy fadyre and þi modyre.
?c1510 tr. Newe Landes & People founde by Kynge of Portyngale sig. Diiv The[y] ete theym alle rawe, both there one fader or moeder.
1526 Pylgrimage of Perfection (de Worde) f. 13 As infantes or tender babes newe borne of theyr mother.
c1546 Prince Edward in H. Ellis Orig. Lett. Eng. Hist. (1824) 1st Ser. II. 131 Most honorable and entirely beloued mother.
1556 in J. G. Nichols Chron. Grey Friars (1852) 25 The qwenys moder dicessyd.
1598 W. Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost ii. i. 256 Then was Venus like her mother, for her father is but grim. View more context for this quotation
a1616 W. Shakespeare Coriolanus (1623) iv. i. 16 Nay Mother . View more context for this quotation
a1616 W. Shakespeare Coriolanus (1623) iv. i. 28 My Mother, you wot well My hazards still haue beene your solace. View more context for this quotation
1645 J. Milton Arcades in Poems 52 Cybele, Mother of a hunderd gods.
1664 C. Cotton Scarronides 48 So smug she [sc. Venus] was, and so array'd, He [sc. Aeneas] took his Mother for a Maid.
1702 C. Mather Magnalia Christi vi. ii. 10/1 She liv'd to be a Mother of several Children.
1740 tr. C. de F. de Mouhy Fortunate Country Maid II. 177 No wonder my Mother was so indulging.
?1780 'Merry Andrew at Tam-Tallan' Antient & New Hist. Buck-Haven (new ed.) iii. 20 How his midder sell'd maucky mutton.
1790 W. Cowper On Receipt Mother's Picture 21 My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead.
c1830 T. H. Bayly We Met! (song) Oh! thou hast been the cause of this anguish, My mother.
1892 G. Stewart Shetland Fireside Tales (ed. 2) ix. 71 Auld Ibbie Bartley, dat wis trids o' kin to my wife's foster midder, an' her oey.
1920 R. Macaulay Potterism iii. ii. 127 ‘Never mind Arthur,’ she said. ‘I wouldn't let him get on my mind if I were you, mother.’
1930 A. Ransome Swallows & Amazons vi. 71 Mother says I must give you plenty of lettuces and peas and things, or else you'll all get scurvy.
1960 C. Day Lewis Buried Day i. 16 I have a large photograph of it, a photograph that after my mother's untimely death used to hang in dark corners or passages of the houses we occupied.
1990 New Republic 9 July 25/1 Right now only a few genetic tests are used by expectant mothers—for Down's syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease, etc.
b. The female parent of an animal. Frequently applied to domesticated or farm animals. Cf. dam n.2 2.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > family unit > [noun] > female > parent
mothereOE
damc1320
damec1320
eOE Laws of Ælfred (Corpus Cambr. 173) xvi. 58 Gif mon cu oððe stodmyran forstele & folan oððe cealf ofadrife, forgelde mid scill[ingum] & þa moder be hiora weorðe.
OE Ælfric Old Test. Summary: Maccabees (Julius) in W. W. Skeat Ælfric's Lives of Saints (1900) II. 104 Ylp is ormæte nyten... Feower and twentig monða gæð seo modor mid folan.
c1175 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 1323 Þe lamb fleþ oþre shep & follȝheþþ aȝȝ hiss moderr.
a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1959) Exod. xxiii. 19 Þou schalt not seeþe akydd in þe mylk of his moder. [So later versions.]
?a1425 (?1373) Lelamour Herbal (1938) f. 11v The swallowis byrd may nought se, till þe moder brynge of that erbe and tuche hir eyne þere wiþ.
a1500 Walter of Henley's Husbandry (Sloane) (1890) 52 (MED) Let þe femalis calvis haue þe modris mylke iij wekis.
a1500 R. Henryson tr. Æsop Fables: Trial of Fox l. 1068 in Poems (1981) 44 Swa come the ȝow, the mother off the lam.
c1540 J. Bellenden tr. H. Boece Hyst. & Cron. Scotl. (1821) I. 39 He maid lawis that grew-quhelpis suld nocht line thair moderis.
1582 S. Batman Vppon Bartholome, De Proprietatibus Rerum 713 The male asse yt is the father of the Mule, is passing cold of complection, and in the Mare that is mother, yt is hot, because of the heat of the horses kind.
1632 W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. ix. 380 Young Chickens, which are not hatched by their mothers, but in the Fernace.
1692 R. L'Estrange Fables ccxxi. 193 Pray Mother (says the Young Crab) do but set the Example your self, and I'll follow ye.
1708 E. Arwaker Truth in Fiction i. lvii. 79 The Lamb reply'd, My Mother's tender Care Has, for my greater Safety, plac'd me here.
1798 W. Wordsworth Last of Flock in W. Wordsworth & S. T. Coleridge Lyrical Ballads 136 A little lamb, and then its mother.
1805 B. F. Sonnets 117 The bleating lamb which had lost its mother.
1868 Ld. Tennyson Lucretius 100 And lambs are glad Nosing the mother's udder.
1922 J. Joyce Ulysses ii. xiv. [Oxen of the Sun] 399 Staggering bob in the vile parlance of our lower class licensed victuallers signifies the cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly dropped from its mother.
1966 W. Styron Confessions Nat Turner iii. 340 While yanking a borning calf from its mother's womb Moore suffered a bizarre and fatal accident.
1992 R. Brown Before & After i. vi. 69 Carolyn had been rapt with admiration. Watching the new mother moving her kittens, jerking them up by their damp scruffs.
c. A female ancestor, esp. with reference to Eve, frequently as our first mother (Genesis 3:20).
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > ancestor > [noun] > female
motherOE
progenitrixc1487
progenitrice?a1505
grandmother1526
ancestress1580
foremother1582
progenitress1611
predecessrix1640
mai1845
OE Ælfric Catholic Homilies: 1st Ser. (Cambr. Gg.3.28) i. 182 God..geworhte of ðam ribbe ænne wifman... Heo is ealra lybbendra modor.
OE Antwerp Gloss. (1955) 212 Proauia, þridde moder.
a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1959) Gen. iii. 20 And adam clepide þe name of his wyf Eue, þoru þat sche was moder of all þingez lyuing.
a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 934 (MED) Eue..þat moder of mani es.
a1475 in A. Clark Eng. Reg. Godstow Nunnery (1905) i. 33 (MED) Iohane..yaf and graunted..for the helþe of the soules of his fadirs and modirs and of all his aunceturs..ij hydys of lond.
a1500 in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 689 (MED) Hec proava, the forne modyre.
a1530 (c1425) Andrew of Wyntoun Oryg. Cron. Scotl. (Royal) i. l. 84 That woman..that Eve we call, For scho wes modyr of ws all.
1568 in W. T. Ritchie Bannatyne MS f. 273 Our first muder.
1611 Bible (King James) Gen. xvii. 16 Yea I wil blesse her, and she shalbe a mother of nations. View more context for this quotation
1621 T. W. tr. S. Goulart Wise Vieillard 154 When hee [sc. the infernall serpent] first bit and stung our first mother Eue, leauing fast sticking in vs the sting of sinne.
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost xi. 159 Whence Haile to thee, Eve rightly call'd, Mother of all Mankind. View more context for this quotation
1727 D. Defoe Syst. Magic (1840) i. iii. 86 The first attack the Devil made upon our Mother Eve we have had fully described.
1791 M. De Fleury Divine Poems & Ess. 218 The first woman, the mother of all living;..Eve..the beloved spouse of Adam.
1816 W. Scott Antiquary I. xv. 322 Thus ejaculated the two worthy representatives of mother Eve.
1849 H. D. Thoreau Week Concord & Merrimack Rivers 342 Eve the mother of mankind.
1903 T. W. H. Crosland Five Notions 39 Eve, our common mother, By pretty, female tricks, Helped to bring us, her children, Into our present fix.
1992 Sci. Amer. Apr. 26/2 With a third set of data on changes in a section of the mitochondrial DNA called the control region, we arrived at a more ancient date for the common mother.
d. Used as a respectful (or mock-respectful) form of address to an elderly woman, esp. to one of little means or education. Also used (instead of Mrs) before the surname (or occasionally the forename) of such a person. Now chiefly archaic and regional.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > person > old person > old woman > [noun] > as term of address
motherc1275
aunt1750
tante1815
tante1845
old dear1866
ouma1904
auntie1938
tannie1958
tita1963
c1275 (?a1200) Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1978) l. 12948 Leofe moder ich æm mon.
c1395 G. Chaucer Wife of Bath's Tale 1005 My leeue moder..I nam but deed but if that I kan sayn What thyng it is that wommen moost desire.
a1438 Bk. Margery Kempe (1940) i. 101 (MED) Þe good preyste cam to hir, seying, ‘Modyr, wyl ȝe gon wyth ȝowr felaschep er not on þis good day?’
1476 J. Paston in Paston Lett. & Papers (2004) I. 490 Owther Symme or Mother Broun maye delyuer it me to-morow.
1496–7 in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 34 Item, a Towell of the gyfte of Mother Ienet.
1534 J. Heywood Play of Loue sig. Ci Mother quoth I how doth my dere darlyng.
1588 in W. H. Stevenson Rec. Borough Nottingham (1889) IV. 221 At one wyddoez house named Mother Jane.
1593 Tell-Trothes New-yeares Gift (1876) 13 While mother trot and her fellowes were descanting on others honesty.
1645 Exam. Wizards & Witches in C. L. Ewen Witch Hunting & Witch Trials (1929) 305 Mary gunnell sayth that about 8 years since Mother Palmer came to the howse of Robt. Wayts wch home she then liued and then desired to giue her a pot of beare.
1847 C. Brontë Jane Eyre II. iv. 91 ‘Well, and you want your fortune told?’, she said... ‘I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself.’
1948 A. Paton Cry, Beloved Country i. xvii. 118 She calls Mrs. Lithebe mother, and that pleases the good woman.
1952 A. Christie Mrs. McGinty's Dead vii. 45 ‘Don't you take on so, mother,’ that's what the sergeant said to me.
1978 L. Dee tr. Hsia Chih-Yen Coldest Winter in Peking iii. 49 Turning now to Mother Ch'i, ‘Mother Ch'i, I must go now.’
e. A mother-in-law. Now usually (chiefly U.S.) used as a title.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > mother-in-law
mother-in-lawa1382
eldmotherc1440
good-mother1491
mother-law1526
mother-of-law1538
mother1589
mother-on-law1670
mama-in-law1855
ma-in-law1899
mum-in-law1975
1589 in D. Masson Reg. Privy Council Scotl. (1881) 1st Ser. IV. 444 His Hienes, invited be his darrest moder the Quene of Denmarkis..letters.
1859 Ld. Tennyson Enid in Idylls of King 42 O my new mother, be not wroth or grieved At your new son, for my petition to her.
1955 M. Carleton Vanished vii. 95 She felt very sure that if Radford lived, Mother Tyler had no suspicion of the fact.
1982 S. Paretsky Indemnity Only x. 130 ‘Well, Mother Thayer,’ Jack said... ‘Oh, please, Jack,’ his mother-in-law said.
1998 S. Morris & J. Hallwood Living with Eagles iii. 45 The reception at the Scarisbrook Hotel (paid for by Mother Dunning) was as spectacular as wartime restrictions allowed.
f. Frequently with the. Womanly qualities (as taken to be inherited from the mother); maternal qualities or instincts, esp. maternal affection.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > person > woman > [noun] > womanly qualities or characteristics > inherited from mother
mother1600
the mind > emotion > love > [noun] > love between kinsmen > motherly love or affection
mother-loveOE
motherheada1393
motherhood1593
mother1725
1600 W. Shakespeare Henry V iv. vi. 31 But I not so much of man in me, But all my mother came into my eyes, And gaue me vp to teares.
1725 W. Broome in A. Pope et al. tr. Homer Odyssey III. xi. 188 Strait all the mother in her soul awakes.
1747 S. Richardson Clarissa I. xviii. 121 I thought, by the glass before me, I saw the mother in her soften'd eye cast towards me.
1807 J. Barlow Columbiad iii. 101 Thrice have those lovely lips the victim prest, And all the mother torn that tender breast.
1847 M. Howitt Ballads 33 The mother in my soul was strong.
1884 Ld. Tennyson Becket v. ii. 185 Look! how this love, this mother, runs thro' all The world God made.
g. colloquial and regional. Used by a father to address or refer to the mother of his children.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > marriage or wedlock > married person > married woman > [noun] > wife > as term of address
spousec1405
mother1855
1855 C. Dickens Little 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.
1932 A. Christie Peril at End House v. 68 Mother and I..feel it's only neighbourly to do what we can.
1970 P. Carlon Souvenir ii. 35 Don't you loathe the way old folks call each other Mother and Dad?
2008 D. Sharp Mama does Time xxxv. 239 ‘I'll be back for you in a couple of hours, Mother.’ ‘I'll be right here, Father.’
h. mothers and fathers n. a form of play in which children act out the roles of mother and father.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > entertainment > pastimes > game > children's game > other children's games > [noun] > game of make-believe > specific
Indian1834
mothers and fathers1903
Cowboys and Indians1916
cops and robbers1938
1903 G. 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 I. Opie & P. Opie Children's Games xii. 331 Even beyond Infant School the girls sometimes play ‘Mothers and Fathers’.
1972 J. Wilson Hide & Seek vii. 130 Shall we play mothers and fathers with our dolls?
2. Christian Church (esp. Roman Catholic Church). Frequently with capital initial. The Virgin Mary.
a. As the mother of Jesus; esp. in Mother of God.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > deity > Christian God > Mary > [noun]
ladyOE
queenOE
MaryOE
St MaryOE
starOE
Our LadylOE
lemana1225
maidena1225
maid Marya1225
heaven queenc1225
mothera1275
maiden Maryc1300
Star of the Seac1300
advocatrixc1390
mother-maidc1390
flower, gem, etc., of virginitya1393
the Virgina1393
mediatricea1400
paramoura1400
salver14..
advocatrice?a1430
Mother of God?a1430
way of indulgence?a1430
advocatessc1450
mother-maidenc1450
rose of Jerichoa1456
mediatrixc1475
viergec1475
addresseressa1492
fleur-de-lis?a1513
rosine?a1513
salvatrice?a1513
saviouress1563
mediatressa1602
advocatress1616
Christotokos1625
Deipara1664
V.M.1670
Madonnaa1684
the Virgin Mother1720
Panagia1776
Mater Dolorosa1800
B.V.M.1838
dispensatrixa1864
Theotokos1874
dispensatress1896
OE Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Tiber. B.iv) anno 994 Seo halige Godes modor on þæm dæge hyre mildheortnysse þære burhware gecydde.
lOE tr. R. d'Escures Sermo in Festis Sancte Marie Virginis in R. D.-N. Warner Early Eng. Homilies (1917) 134 Þiss godspell belimpe to þære eadigen Marien Cristes moder.
c1200 Serm. in Eng. & Germanic Stud. (1961) 7 65 Vre leuedi seinte marie godes milde moder.
c1390 G. Chaucer Prioress's Tale 1846 This welle of mercy, Cristes moder swete, I loued alwey.
?a1430 T. Hoccleve Mother of God l. 1 in Minor Poems (1970) i. 52 Modir of god and virgyne vndeffouled!
?c1475 Catholicon Anglicum (BL Add. 15562) f. 56 Godis modyr, mater dei, theotecos.
a1500 (?a1450) Gesta Romanorum (BL Add. 9066) (1879) 405 That blessyd ladie, goddis modre.
1557 Primer Sarum D iij O mother of God moste glorious, and amorous.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 1 (1623) i. iii. 57 Gods Mother deigned to appeare to me. View more context for this quotation
a1631 J. Donne Serm. (1953) I. 200 The Fathers are frequent in comparing..Eve, the Mother of Man, and Mary the Mother of God.
1664 H. More Second Lash of Alazonomastix 521 He..would not allow the most holy Virgin, the Mother of Christ as to the flesh..to be called Deipara or the Mother of God.
1759 A. Butler Lives Saints IV. 891 Her predestination to the sublime dignity of Mother of God.
1761 L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy III. xi. 43 May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him.
1856 R. Farie tr. A. von Haxthausen Russ. Empire I. viii. 254 On Easter night the Skoptzi and Khlisti all assemble for a great solemnity, the worship of the Mother of God.
1869 ‘M. Twain’ Innocents Abroad xxviii. 306 First—‘The Mother of God’—otherwise the Virgin Mary.
1898 W. K. Johnson Terra Tenebrarum 105 Mother of God, we here enthrone Thee, thy slain Son, within thy house.
a1914 ‘M. Field’ Ras Byzance iii, in Deirdre (1918) 167 That big Italian..Who cried for Maryam, God's Mother.
1994 Latin Mass Jan. 39/3 The Church refers to Mary..and each time sees fit not to call her the Mother of God, or the mediatrix of all graces, but, simply, ‘ever-virgin’.
b. As a channel of grace, mercy, love, etc.; esp. in Mother of mercy. Frequently as a form of address.
ΚΠ
a1225 (c1200) Vices & Virtues (1888) 21 (MED) Moder of mildce, ðe ic bidde..ðat tu me besieke forȝiuenesse of mine sennes.
c1230 (?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Corpus Cambr.) (1962) 26 Meiden of milce. moder of grace.
a1400 in Mod. Lang. Notes (1915) 30 231 (MED) Heil qweene, modir of merci.
c1475 Mankind (1969) 756 O goode Lady and Moþer of mercy, haue pety and compassyon Of þe wrechydnes of Mankynde.
a1500 ( Poems from Pilgrimage of Soul (Egerton) in F. J. Furnivall Wks. T. Hoccleve: Regement Princes (1897) p. xxxii Thu lady, qween of heven..Thu floure of vertue, modiere of delice.
?1630 R. Howard Sacred Poeme 29 Mother of mercy, b'it not sayd, that thou Didst' ere reiect, an humbled sinner's vow.
1677 S. Speed To Creator in Prison-pietie 105 Bless'd Mary, pre-ordain'd to be Mother of Grace and Clemencie.
1908 Catholic Encycl. IV. 662/2 As the person is about to expire,..the Holy Name of Jesus is to be invoked, and such ejaculations as the following whispered in his ear:..‘Mary Mother of grace, Mother of mercy, do thou protect me from the enemy.’
1986 T. Murphy Bailegangaire ii. 74 Settle down an' be sayin' yere prayers... Hail Holy Queen. Yes? Mother of Mercy. Yes?
c. As the mother of the Church and of Christians. Frequently as a form of address.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > deity > Christian God > Mary > [noun]
ladyOE
queenOE
MaryOE
St MaryOE
starOE
Our LadylOE
lemana1225
maidena1225
maid Marya1225
heaven queenc1225
mothera1275
maiden Maryc1300
Star of the Seac1300
advocatrixc1390
mother-maidc1390
flower, gem, etc., of virginitya1393
the Virgina1393
mediatricea1400
paramoura1400
salver14..
advocatrice?a1430
Mother of God?a1430
way of indulgence?a1430
advocatessc1450
mother-maidenc1450
rose of Jerichoa1456
mediatrixc1475
viergec1475
addresseressa1492
fleur-de-lis?a1513
rosine?a1513
salvatrice?a1513
saviouress1563
mediatressa1602
advocatress1616
Christotokos1625
Deipara1664
V.M.1670
Madonnaa1684
the Virgin Mother1720
Panagia1776
Mater Dolorosa1800
B.V.M.1838
dispensatrixa1864
Theotokos1874
dispensatress1896
a1275 in C. Brown Eng. Lyrics 13th Cent. (1932) 42 (MED) Moder, loke one me wid þine suete eþen [read eyen].
a1300 in C. Brown Eng. Lyrics 13th Cent. (1932) 117 (MED) Moder, ful of þewes hende..ic em in þine loue-bende.
?a1430 T. Hoccleve Ad Beatam Virginem (Huntington) l. 114 in Minor Poems (1970) i. 47 O blessid Ihesu..And modir..Haueth me, bothe, in your proteccion!
c1450 (c1370) G. Chaucer A.B.C. 133 Mooder, of whom oure merci gan to springe, Beth ye my juge and eek my soules leche.
a1540 (c1460) G. Hay tr. Bk. King Alexander 282 Lovit be..the blissit mother Virgine Marie.
1563 N. Winȝet Certain Tractates (1888) I. 73 The glorius Virgine, the Mothir.
1798 S. T. Coleridge Anc. Marinere iii, in W. Wordsworth & S. T. Coleridge Lyrical Ballads 17 Heaven's mother send us grace.
1868 H. W. Baker in Hymns Anc. & Mod. App. No. 736 Shall we not love thee, Mother dear, Whom Jesus loves so well?
1908 F. W. Bourdillon Preludes & Romances ii. 36 More sober answer made the Mother mild [sc. the Virgin Mary].
1987 G. McCaughrean Little Lower than Angels iii. 24 The miracles of the holy saints and their Mother in Heaven, the Blessed Virgin.
3. A woman who exercises control over an institution, etc., and similar uses.
a. A female head or superior of a religious community (now usually more fully Mother Superior or, more specifically, Mother Prioress, Mother Vicaress, etc.). Formerly also (occasionally): †a female founder of a religious order (obsolete). Also: a senior nun in a religious community other than the superior. Cf. Mother General n. at Compounds 7.As a title or form of address, Mother is typically used of a senior nun other than the Mother Superior, of whom Reverend Mother is used.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > church government > monasticism > religious superior > abbess > [noun]
abbotesseOE
mothereOE
dame?c1225
abbessc1300
matriarch1606
maternity1693
domina1751
society > faith > church government > monasticism > religious superior > conventual head > [noun] > female
presidentress1650
Reverend Mother1658
superioress1669
provostess1871
Mother Superior1907
Mother Vicaress1930
Mother Prioress1961
Sister Superior1991
eOE tr. Bede Eccl. Hist. (Tanner) iv. xxiv. 340 Þa weahte heo ealle þa sweostor, & heht to cirican gangan; & in gebedum & on sealmsonge for heora modor sawle georne þingodon.
a1225 ( Rule St. Benet (Winteney) (1888) 129 Ðeo abbodesse..sy hlæfedie & moder ȝehaten.
?a1425 tr. Catherine of Siena Orcherd of Syon (Harl.) (1966) 1 (MED) Religyous modir & deuoute sustren..chosen bisily to laboure at the hous of Syon.
a1500 Rule Minoresses in W. W. Seton Two 15th Cent. Franciscan Rules (1914) 84 Make þey professioun in hondes of þe Abbesse..in þis manere. I..bihote to god & owre ladi blissid mayde marie.., in ȝoure hondes, moder, to lyue [etc.].
1526 R. Whitford tr. Martiloge 110v The canonizacyon..of our holy moder saynt Birgit.
1571 Acts Parl. Scotl. (1814) III. 59 Landis..in few..of the priouris or prioressis moderis and conventis of sindrie frieris and nunnis places.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Measure for Measure (1623) i. iv. 85 I will about it strait; No longer staying, but to giue the Mother Notice of my affaire. View more context for this quotation
1671 A. Woodhead in tr. Life St. Teresa Pref. sig. a1 Very eminent in this kind are these Works of the Holy Mother Teresa.
1714 in Publ. Catholic Rec. Soc. (1971) 62 123 To Reverend Mother Abbess of Gravelin.
1798 J. Baillie De Monfort v. iv, in Series of Plays I. 404 And you have wisely done, my rev'rend mother.
1820 W. Scott Abbot I. xii. 243 They call me Lady Abbess, or Mother at the least, who address me.
1883 Mrs. Craik in Longman's Mag. Jan. 306 I could understand how the Mother was just the woman to be head of a community like this.
1907 Athenæum 2 Nov. 545/3 The astute yet saintly mother-superior.
1930 E. Ferber Cimarron 44 Mother Bridget was in the Mission vegetable garden, superintending the cutting of the great rosy stalks of late pie plant.
1930 Universe 28 Mar. 4/4 The Mother Vicaress of the Franciscan Convent, Taunton..died last week and was buried on Saturday.
1961 John o' London's 13 Apr. 423/4 Much of what the Mother-Prioress reveals is deeply interesting to anybody.
1989 C. Harkness Time of Grace i. 46 Reverend Mother looked at us coldly.
1998 L. Purves Holy Smoke iii. 24 A letter..from Mother Mary of the Trinity at the Bangkok Mater Mei convent.
†b. Scottish. In extended use: any saintly woman or woman having religious authority. Obsolete. rare.
ΚΠ
c1480 (a1400) St. Mary of Egypt 307 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) I. 305 Spirituale modyr, quhat-sa þu be, for godis sak schau þe to me!
c. In full mother of the maids (of honour). The head of the maids of honour in a royal household. Now historical.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > office > holder of office > official of royal or great household > [noun] > head of maids of honour
mother1577
1577–8 New Year's Gifts in J. Nichols Progresses Queen Elizabeth (1823) II. 88 To Mrs. Hyde, Mother of the Mades.
1620 F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Phylaster ii. 16 The reuerend mother sent me word, They would all be for the garden.
1632 R. Brome Northern Lasse i. iv She might ha' been Mother o' the Maids.
1682 N. Luttrell Diary in Brief Hist. Relation State Affairs (1857) I. 159 The lady Sanderson, mother of the maids of honour to her majestie, was interred in the abby.
1711 T. Hearne Remarks & Coll. (1889) III. 132 Mrs. *** Mother of the Maids to K. James IIds Queen.
1823 Ld. Byron Don Juan: Canto VI xxx. 16 At their head there stalked A dame who kept up discipline among The female ranks... Her title was ‘the Mother of the Maids’.
1897 Dict. National Biogr. L. 268/1 Sanderson, Sir William She was mother of the maids of honour to Catherine of Braganza.
d. A woman who runs a brothel, a madam (madam n. 5). Now chiefly as a title.
ΘΚΠ
society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > unchastity > prostitution > [noun] > brothel-keeper
bawd1362
bordellera1393
mother1596
brothel1604
brothel master1608
factoress1611
cock bawd1632
brothel keeper1710
padrona1744
case keeper1757
madame1871
madam1879
whore-mistress?1885
whorehouse madam1916
1596 T. Lodge Margarite of Amer. sig. C4v A great Prince in the court of Protomachus..who had Macheuils prince in his bosome to giue instance, and mother Nana the Italian bawd in his pocket to shew his artificall villanies.
1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Mother, a Bawd.
1749 J. Cleland Mem. Woman of Pleasure I. 45 Mother Brown had in the mean time agreed the terms with this liquorish old goat,..fifty guineas peremptory for the liberty of attempting me [etc.].
1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue Mother, or the Mother, a bawd.
a1827 W. 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.
1842 R. H. Dana Jrnl. (1968) I. 79 In the middle of the room..sat the old harridan, the ‘mother’ of the house.
1913 G. J. Kneeland Commercialized Prostitution 92 It is not uncommon for the girls as well as the customers to call her ‘mother’.
1973 G. Greene Honorary Consul i. iii. 96 It must be better than life at Mother Sanchez.
1980 E. Jong Fanny ii. v. 207 I enter'd Mother Coxtart's House once more.
1999 Toronto Sun (Nexis) 12 Apr. 52 Jackie Burroughs is a scene-stealer as filthy-mouthed desert brothel owner Mother Mucca.
e. In occasional uses specific to various institutions, etc. (see quots.).
ΚΠ
1897 Daily 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].
1930 Amer. Speech 5 468 Theatrical rooming house—Diggings or diggs. Mother (proprietress of same)—Ma.
1953 J. G. Moore in F. G. Cassidy & R. B. Le Page Dict. Jamaican Eng. (1967) 306/1 Mother = crowned shepherdess—the highest female office [in a Revival religious group].
1975 Times 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.
1979 Daily Mail 8 Sept. 17/4 Mother, senior secretary.
1983 Times 17 Dec. 2/2 Miss Joanna Davies, mother of the NUJ chapel (chairman of the office branch).
f. colloquial. A female owner of a pet, esp. of a dog.
ΚΠ
1922 P. G. Wodehouse Clicking of Cuthbert viii. 197 He was his muzzer's pet, he was.
1924 J. Galsworthy 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!’
1940 N. Mitford Pigeon Pie ix. 139 Many mothers of dogs had fetched their little ones home.
g. U.S. slang. An effeminate homosexual man; spec. one who acts as a mentor to a younger man. your mother: a term used by a homosexual man to refer to himself, esp. as a figure of authority.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > person > man > [noun] > effeminate man
badlingeOE
milksopc1390
cockneyc1405
malkina1425
molla1425
weakling1526
tenderling1541
softling1543
niceling1549
woman-man1567
cocknel1570
effeminate1583
androgyne1587
meacock1590
mammaday1593
hermaphrodite1594
midwife1596
nimfadoro1600
night-sneaker1611
mock-mana1625
nan1670
she-man1675
petit maître1711
old woman1717
master-miss1754
Miss Molly1754
molly1785
squaw1805
mollycoddle1823
Miss Nancy1824
mollycot1826
molly mop1829
poof1833
Margery?c1855
ladyboy1857
girl1862
Mary Ann1868
sissy1879
milk1881
pretty-boy1881
nancy1888
poofter1889
Nancy Dawson1890
softie1895
puff1902
pussy1904
Lizzie1905
nance1910
quean1910
maricon1921
pie-face1922
bitch1923
Jessie1923
lily1923
tapette1923
pansy1926
nancy boy1927
nelly1931
femme1932
ponce1932
queerie1933
palone1934
queenie1935
girlie-man1940
swish1941
puss1942
wonk1945
mother1947
candy-ass1953
twink1953
cream puff1958
pronk1959
swishy1959
limp wrist1960
pansy-ass1963
weeny1963
poofteroo1966
mo1968
shim1973
twinkie1977
woofter1977
cake boy1992
hermaphrodite-
the world > physical sensation > sexual relations > sexual orientation > homosexuality > [noun] > a homosexual person > male
badlingeOE
nan1670
molly1708
Miss Molly1754
Miss Nancy1824
molly mop1829
poof1833
Margery?c1855
Mary Ann1868
pretty-boy1881
cocksucker1885
poofter1889
queer1894
fruit1895
fairy1896
homosexualist1898
puff1902
pussy1904
nance1910
quean1910
girl1912
faggot1913
mouser1914
queen1919
fag1921
gay boy1921
maricon1921
pie-face1922
bitch1923
Jessie1923
tapette1923
pansy1926
nancy boy1927
nelly1931
femme1932
ponce1932
punk1933
queerie1933
gobbler1934
jocker1935
queenie1935
iron1936
freak1941
swish1941
flit1942
tonk1943
wonk1945
mother1947
fruitcake1952
Mary1953
twink1953
swishy1959
limp wrist1960
arse bandit1961
leather man1961
booty bandit1962
ginger beer1964
bummer1965
poofteroo1966
shirtlifter1966
battyman1967
dick-sucker1968
mo1968
a friend of Dorothy1972
shim1973
gaylord1976
twinkie1977
woofter1977
bender1986
knob jockey1989
batty boy1992
cake boy1992
1941 G. Legman in G. W. Henry Sex Variants II. 1171 Mother Ga-ga, a busybody and a know-it-all; particularly applied to an old auntie, a middle-aged or elderly homosexual, who is likely to be meddlesome and officiously over-informative.]
1947 J. H. Burns Gallery 143 Your mother's awfully late tonight, but she'll try and make it up to you!
1968 L. Humphreys Tearoom Trade (Ph.D. thesis, Washington Univ.) iii. 77 Don't knock (criticize) a trick (sex partner)—he may be sombody's mother (homosexual mentor).
1972 B. Rodgers Queens' Vernacular 138 ‘Jass, your mother's been remade-up for the television crew.’
1993 A. Richter Dict. Sexual Slang 63/2 Daughter, young homosexual male, especially one introduced into homosexual society by a mother.
4. A quality, institution, place, etc., that produces, protects, nurtures, or sustains people, ideas, etc.
a. A quality, condition, event, etc., that gives rise to or is the source of something. Also: a place regarded as engendering or nourishing something. Chiefly with of, or as a title.necessity is the mother of invention: see necessity n. Phrases 2.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > causation > source or origin > [noun]
welleOE
mothereOE
ordeOE
wellspringeOE
fathereOE
headeOE
oreOE
wellspringOE
rootc1175
morea1200
beginningc1200
head wella1325
sourcec1374
principlea1382
risinga1382
springinga1382
fountain14..
springerc1410
nativity?a1425
racinea1425
spring1435
headspring?a1439
seminaryc1440
originationc1443
spring wellc1450
sourdre1477
primordialc1487
naissance1490
wellhead?1492
offspringa1500
conduit-head1517
damc1540
springhead1547
principium1550
mint1555
principal1555
centre1557
head fountain1563
parentage1581
rise1589
spawna1591
fount1594
parent1597
taproot1601
origin1604
fountainhead1606
radix1607
springa1616
abundary1622
rist1622
primitive1628
primary1632
land-spring1642
extraction1655
upstart1669
progenerator1692
fontala1711
well-eye1826
first birth1838
ancestry1880
Quelle1893
eOE King Ælfred tr. Gregory Pastoral Care (Tiber.) (Junius transcript) (1871) xxxiii. 222 Se yfela willa..is modur ælces yfeles.
OE Ælfric Lives of Saints (Julius) (1881) I. 20 Witodlice gemetegung is eallra mægena modor.
a1225 (c1200) Vices & Virtues (1888) 149 (MED) Hie [sc. discretion] is moder of alle ðe oðre mihtes.
c1390 G. Chaucer Pardoner's Tale 591 Hasard is verray moder of lesynges And of deceite and cursed forswerynges.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 180v Grecia..is..modir of philosophie.
c1449 R. Pecock Repressor (1860) 555 (MED) Loue to money..is moder of passing myche yuel.
1463–4 Rolls of Parl. V. 507/1 Ydelnes, moder of all vyces.
a1500 (?a1425) tr. Secreta Secret. (Lamb.) 54 (MED) Stody and loue, desir of good lose in treuthe & sothfastnesse, þat ys..Moder of alle goodis.
1573 New Custome i. i. sig. A iijv That I Ignorance am the mother of true deuotion.
1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. xv. 23 The mother of such magnificence (they thinke) is but only a proude ambitious desire to be spoken of farre and wide.
1611 B. Jonson Catiline iii. sig. F4v For 'tis despaire, that is the mother of madnesse. View more context for this quotation
1617 F. Moryson Itinerary i. 181 Experience, the mother of fooles.
1632 T. Heywood Londini Art. & Sci. Scaturigo Pref. sig. A4 The Liberall Arts, and Sciences..are at this time..more plenteously inriched by their blessed Mother and bountifull Nurse, the most illustrious Citty London.
1693 J. Locke Some Thoughts conc. Educ. §124 [Lying] is so ill a Quality, and the mother of so many ill ones that spawn from it.
1723 H. Rowlands Mona Antiqua Restaurata ii. 308 The old Celtic..was the Mother of most of the antient Tongues of Europe.
1766 B. Franklin Let. 28 Apr. in Wks. (1887) III. 463 I congratulate you on the repeal of that mother of mischiefs, the Stamp Act.
1799 Hull Advertiser 21 Dec. 4/2 The..maxim that ‘freight is the mother of wages’.
1813 P. B. Shelley Queen Mab vi. 82 Necessity! thou mother of the world.
1828 C. Lamb Blakesmoor in Elia 2nd Ser. 173 The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of thought.
1923 W. Stevens Harmonium 102 Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires.
1974 Times 4 Feb. 13/4 His wish being mother to the thought.
1978 J. Updike Coup (1979) vii. 266 Here's to 'er, Mother Change. A tough old bitch, but we love 'er.
b. The earth regarded as the source, nurturer, or sustainer of humanity. See also mother earth n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > [noun]
all the worldeOE
mouldOE
worldOE
earthOE
earthricheOE
foldOE
worldricheOE
motherOE
wonec1275
mound?a1300
wildernessa1340
mappemondea1393
lower worlda1398
the whole worlda1513
orba1550
the (also this) globe1553
the earthly globe1553
mother earth1568
the glimpses of the moon1603
universe1630
outer world1661
terrene1667
Orphic egg1684
Midgard1770
all outdoors1833
Planet Earth1858
overworld1911
Spaceship Earth1966
OE Metrical Charm: For Unfruitful Land (Calig. A.vii) 69 Hal wes þu, folde, fira modor!
a1325 (c1250) Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 122 Of euerilc ougt, of euerilc sed, Was erðe mad moder of sped.
a1393 J. Gower Confessio Amantis (Fairf.) vii. 4744 (MED) Therthe of every mannes kinde Is Moder.
a1500 (c1425) Andrew of Wyntoun Oryg. Cron. Scotl. (Nero) ii. l. 502 I can be na waye trow Þat oþir modyr haf we now Þan þe erde.
1533 J. Bellenden tr. Livy Hist. Rome (1903) II. 231 This erd that we call oure moder.
1600 R. Surflet tr. C. Estienne & J. Liébault Maison Rustique i. iv. 13 As for the earth..it beareth all manner of corne, fruits,..and other thinges,..and heereupon olde writers haue iustly giuen vnto it the due name of mother.
1625 F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) 207 Our Great Mothers Blessing, the Earths.
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost v. 338 Whatever Earth all-bearing Mother yeilds In India East or West. View more context for this quotation
1733 B. Booth tr. Horace Ode i. xxxiv, in B. Victor Mem. Life B. Booth 53 Earth, our dull Mother, groans.
1786 J. Clowes tr. E. Swedenborg True Christian Relig. (ed. 2) x. §585 The earth..being their common mother..brings them forth, that is, teems them from her womb into the open day.
a1822 P. B. Shelley tr. P. Calderon Scenes from Magico Prodigioso in Posthumous Poems (1824) 379 Oh! Beloved earth, dear mother.
1823 C. Lamb Old Benchers in Elia 202 But the common mother of us all in no long time after received him gently into hers [sc. her lap].
1876 A. C. Swinburne Erechtheus 20 O holy and general mother of all men born, But mother most and motherliest of mine, Earth.
1974 ‘H. MacDiarmid’ Direadh i. 15 I am the primitive man, Antaeus-like, Deriving my strength from the warm, brown, kindly earth, My mother.
c. A country, city, etc., in relation to its natives. Also: a river in relation to those who inhabit its banks. In later use frequently prefixed to the name of a country, river, etc. See also mother country n.In quots. OE, c1384 used of the heavenly Jerusalem (cf. city n. 4a).
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > biology > biological processes > procreation or reproduction > [noun] > procreator, parent, or origin
motherOE
stallionc1305
childbearera1382
getterc1390
begetter1440
procreator1548
propagator1585
procreatrix1593
breeder1594
procreatress1597
pregnatress1651
multiplier1660
parent1670
propagatrix1803
baby-maker1968
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > district in relation to human occupation > a land or country > [noun] > homeland or native land
kithc888
etheleOE
erdOE
homeOE
motherOE
fatherlandc1275
countrya1300
soila1400
countrywarda1425
motherland1565
mother country1567
patrie1581
native1604
homelanda1627
home country1707
patria1707
old country1751
the (old) sod1812
home birth1846
Vaterland1852
old sod1863
motherland1895
Bongo Bongo1911
sireland1922
OE Paris Psalter (1932) lxxxvi. 4 Modor Sion man cwæð ærest, and hire mære gewearð mann on innan.
c1384 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) Gal. iv. 26 That Jerusalem that is aboue is free, the which is oure modir.
a1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1869) II. 39 (MED) Walsche men beeþ i-woned to seie a prouerbe..‘Mon mam Kembry’, þat is to menynge in Englische ‘Mon moder of Wales’.
a1522 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid (1957) iii. ii. 11 Delos..the moder..Of the Nereydes.
a1563 J. Bale King Johan (1969) ii. 1717 O Englande, Englande, shewe now thyselfe a mother; Thy people wyll els be slayne here without nomber.
1597 W. Shakespeare Richard II i. iii. 270 Then Englands ground farewell, sweet soile adiew, My mother and my nurse. View more context for this quotation
1679 in Rec. Colony Rhode Island (1858) III. 374 We being wholly ruled and governed by the good and wholesome [laws] of our Mother, the kingdom of England.
1721 Boston News-let. 28 Aug. They are a New Club set up in New-England, like to that in our Mother England.
1726 J. Swift Gulliver I. ii. vii. 123 I have always born that laudable Partiality to my own Country,..[and] I would hide the Frailties and Deformities of my Political Mother.
1786 R. Burns Poems 39 Scotland, my auld, respected Mither!
1851 G. Borrow Lavengro xvi ‘What horse is that?’.. ‘The best in mother England,’ said the very old man.
1901 W. E. Henley Hawthorn & Lavender 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!
1936 H. G. Wells Anat. Frustration xv. 183 Why specialize in Erin or Mother India or Palestine, when the whole world is our common inheritance?
1957 V. Nabokov Pnin i. 10 Those stupendous Russian ladies..infuse a magic knowledge of their difficult and beautiful tongue..in an atmosphere of Mother Volga songs, red caviar, and tea.
1972 ‘P. Ruell’ Red Christmas xv. 153 Came as quite a shock to them when they realised we weren't doing it all for Mother Russia.
1988 M. Moorcock (title) Mother London.
d. The Christian Church; (hence) any particular Christian church. Frequently in holy mother. See also mother church n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > sect > Christianity > person > [noun] > collective
holy churchc897
churcheOE
brideOE
ChristendomOE
Christ's churchOE
Christianitya1300
motherc1300
brotherheadc1384
Peter's bargea1393
Church of Christc1400
faithfulc1400
body of Christ?1495
congregation1526
husbandry1526
Peter's ship1571
mother church1574
St. Peter's ship1678
Peter's bark1857
Peter's boat1893
priest1897
c1300 St. Thomas Becket (Laud) 2024 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 164 (MED) Ich lete a-mansi alle þat hadden mis-do Mine churche, þat is his owene Moder.
c1350 (a1333) William of Shoreham Poems (1902) 94 (MED) Þer holy cherche þy moder hys.
c1400 (c1378) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Laud 581) (1869) B. xvi. 197 Children of charite & holicherche þe moder.
1413 T. Hoccleve Minor Poems (1892) i. 40 Þe holy chirches Champioun..Strengthe your modir in chacyng away Therrour which sones of iniquitee Han sowe.
c1460 in A. Clark Eng. Reg. Oseney Abbey (1907) 41 (MED) To all soones of our hooly modur the church.
a1500 tr. A. Chartier Traité de l'Esperance (Rawl.) (1974) 46 (MED) O modir, holy chirche, thou arte foundid in humilite.
1562 N. Winȝet Certain Tractates (1888) I. 33 Returne..to your awin moder Godis kirk.
a1616 W. Shakespeare King John (1623) iii. i. 182 Or let the Church our mother breathe her curse, A mothers curse, on her reuolting sonne. View more context for this quotation
1630 H. Yaxlee Morbus & Antidotus To Christian Rdr. sig. A2v The obedient sonne of my deare Mother the true Church of England.
1633 G. Herbert Lent in Temple i The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church sayes, now: Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow To ev'ry Corporation.
1695 J. Edwards Disc. conc. Old & New-Test. III. xiv. 589 A Learned and Pious Son of our Mother.
a1715 in N. Amhurst Terræ-filius (1726) xv. 73 ‘Our holy mother was not permitted to take counsel for herself.’ Poor old gentlewoman! What a sad thing that was!
1746 C. Macklin Henry VII iv. i. 56 Our Mother, the holy, holy Infallible Church,—Heaven's Vice-gerent!
1833 Tracts 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.
1904 F. W. O. Ward Prisoner of Love 252 To take the solemn vow For Holy Church our Mother.
1992 M. Roberts Daughters of House (1993) (BNC) 115 Authority of our Holy Mother the Church vested in me. Regular attendance at Mass and the sacraments.
†e. A university, college, etc., in relation to its past or present members. Cf. alma mater n. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
society > education > place of education > [noun] > educational institution > one's former school or university
motherc1439
alma mater1650
c1439 in H. Anstey Epistolae Academicae Oxon. (1898) I. 184 (MED) Oure moder, the Universite of Oxon.
c1461 in H. Anstey Epistolae Academicae Oxon. (1898) II. 369 (MED) Thes yowre..nobyll..geffts un to owre moder the Universite beth for ever to be..had in mynd.
1516 in Select. Rec. Oxf. (1880) 16 Syr to certyfy your maistershype of the estate of our mother ye universitie.
a1613 T. Bodley Life in Trecentale Bodleianum (1913) 14 For the love that I beare to my Reverend Mother the Vniversity of Oxford.
1647–8 A. Wood Life 15 Feb. (1891) 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.
1668 W. Prynne Exact Chronol. Vindic. III. Ded. sig. A2 Lincolns-Inne, (a fruitfull Mother for sundry ages, of many able, learned, reverend, renowned Privy Counsellors, State-Officers, Judges, [etc.]).
1721 N. Amhurst Terræ-filius (1754) Ded. 5 I had much rather have your approbation than your censure, and enjoy the favour of my dear mother.
1753 H. Brooke College-Green Club 15 Hast thou been so long at school, Now to turn a factious fool; Alma mater was thy mother, Every young divine thy brother.
1844 B. W. Procter Eng. Songs (new ed.) vi. 10 Alma Mater [sc. the University of Cambridge]! Thou mother kind, Who trainest the youthful human mind.
f. Nature regarded as a fundamental, esp. protecting or nurturing, force. Chiefly personified in Mother Nature.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > existence > materiality > [noun] > nature > personified as a female being
naturea1393
motherc1525
workmistress1568
Dame Nature1669
c1525 J. Rastell New Commodye Propertes of Women sig. Ai Nature..is mother of all thing.
1550 R. Sherry tr. Erasmus Declam. Chyldren in Treat. Schemes & Tropes sig. Gviv To manye dumme beastes, nature the mother of all thynges, hath geuen more helpe to do theyr natural offices.
1551 R. Robinson tr. T. More Vtopia sig. Mvi They..thankfully knouledge ye tender loue of mother nature.
1598 T. James tr. G. Du Vair Moral Philos. Stoicks 22 Shall we thinke that nature, the mother of Arts and Sciences, hath proposed vnto man..an end, which it is vnpossible for him to come vnto?
1601 R. Johnson tr. G. Botero Trauellers Breuiat 27 Whereas mother Nature hath interlaced so riotously her golden and siluer veines in the bosome and wombe of Peru.
1629 F. Hubert Hist. Edward II lxvi Our Mother Nature..By whom we haue our apt Organons assign'd.
1710 D. Manley Mem. Europe I. ii. 249 Our good and gracious Mother Nature, is said to send no Poison, but she provides an Antidote.
1764 O. Goldsmith Traveller 5 Nature, a mother kind alike to all.
1850 N. Hawthorne Scarlet Let. Introd. 18 This Inspector..seemed—not young, indeed—but a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch.
1866 M. Arnold Thyrsis xviii, in Macmillan's Mag. Apr. 452 And now in happier air, Wandering with the great Mother's train divine.
1904 J. London Sea-wolf xvii. 158 Old Mother Nature's going to get up on her hind legs and howl for all that's in her.
1958 J. Barth End of Road xi. 188 Like a lot of small towns, Wicomico is dead set against frustrating Mother Nature.
1990 Health Guardian May 3/2 Would Mother Nature..ever have anticipated the multitude of environmental stresses that modern urban society causes to be imposed on us?
g. A city, country, institution, etc., from which another originates as an offshoot; spec. a city or country in relation to its colonies. Also prefixed to the name of a country, etc.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > causation > source or origin > [noun] > one who originates
sower1380
originalc1390
beginnerc1400
authrix?a1475
mother1560
grandmother1569
seedster1589
father-in-law1650
originator1818
originatress1840
incubator1864
originant1892
1560 J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. cclxxxv The churche of Rome, mother and maistres of al others.
1764 J. Otis Rights Brit. Colonies 27 Greece was more generous, and a better mother to her colonies than Rome.
1838 C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece (new ed.) II. xii. 106 It [sc. Sinope] became in its turn the mother of several flourishing cities.
1975 Times 9 July 1/8 The American Revolution..betrayed..Mother England.
5. Mother of God (also †God's Mother): used as an oath or a strong exclamation of surprise, disbelief, dismay, etc. Hence in similar oaths Mother of Mercy, Mother of Moses (see Moses n. 1c), Mother of Heaven, etc.In the 16th and 17th centuries frequently euphemistically altered: see quot. ?1577 at motherkin n. and mother-of-pearl int.; cf. also quot. 1991.by God's mother: see god n. and int. Phrases 3b(a).
ΚΠ
1575 W. Stevenson Gammer Gurtons Nedle iii. ii. sig. C iiv Gods mother dere, if that be true, farwel both naule an thong But who hais it gammer say on: chould faine here it disclosed.
1605 S. Rowley When you see Me sig. H3 Gods-mother Kate, thoust toucht them there, What say yee to that Bonner?
1764 H. Walpole Castle of Otranto ii. 86 Mother of God! said the Friar, is it possible my Lord can refuse a father the life of his only, his long-lost child!
1837 T. J. Serle Joan of Arc i. iii. 17 Mother of mercy, this is pitiful! Orleans! the best stay of my cause!
1868 T. Westwood Quest of Sancgreall 53 He turned to track its flight,—sweet Mother of God! What vision fixed him!
1884 D. Boucicault Shaughraun i. iii. 17 ‘Mother of Moses!’ ses he, ‘is that Conn the Shaughraun on my brown mare?’
1891 R. Kipling Courting of Dinah Shadd in Life's Handicap 46 ‘Mother av Hiven, sergint,’ sez I, ‘but is that your daughter?’
1900 S. J. Weyman Sophia (1922) vi. 75 Holy Mother!.. 'Tis not you ladyship!
1924 M. Kennedy Constant Nymph xxiii. 316 Mother of God! What a hurry the girls are in nowadays!
1955 E. Pound Classic Anthol. I. 21 Mother of Heaven, Shall no one be traist?
1972 J. Johnston Captains & Kings 51 The old man took his watch from his pocket. ‘Getting on for five.’ ‘Mother of God, I'll be murdered. She'll ask me questions.’
1991 R. Doyle Van (1992) 167 It was like a Pearl fuckin' Harbor. Jimmy Sr had half said—For a queue there, when they hit the van.—Oh, mother o' shite!
6.
a. As int. Expressing surprise, dismay, etc. Cf. sense 6c. See also my sainted mother! at sainted adj. 2b.
ΚΠ
1899 R. Whiteing No. 5 John St. xxiii. 232 O mother, don't the paint make you feel good!
1909 Sat. Evening Post 22 May 6/3 ‘Gee, what a peach of an idea!’ ‘Oh, mother!’
b. Originally and chiefly U.S. slang (derogatory). your mother! and variants: used as a retort expressing extreme derision.J. E. Lighter Hist. Dict. Amer. Slang (1997) notes that the phrase ‘is widely perceived to suggest go fuck your mother, and for many speakers is therefore equally provoking’; see also quot. 1995.
ΚΠ
1891 in J. F. Dobie Rainbow in Morning 172 Talk about one thing, talk about an other; But ef you talk about me, I'm gwain to talk about your mother.]
1934 H. Roth Call it Sleep iv. xiv. 483 Yuh mudder's ass!
1937 C. Odets Golden Boy 243 [On telephone] I'll bring him right over... You can take my word—the kid's a cock-eyed wonder..your mother too!
1953 ‘F. Paley’ Rumble on Docks 86 ‘Your mother!’ Pooch murmured.
1971 K. Awoonor This Earth, my Brother ii. 17 As he turned into the road, swinging left, tyres screeching, the taxi driver jammed on his brakes, eased opposite him, and said without venom or bitterness, Your mother's arse, don't you know how to drive?
1974 V. C. Strasburger Rounding Third 159 Carter turned around. ‘Your mother,’ he said to the guy who had just finished talking.
1995 K. Burns in A. Sexton Rap on Rap 35 According to brother Morgan Dalphinis, author of Caribbean and African Languages, this is the ultimate pan-African insult. The Hausa say uwarka (‘your mother’), which is really short for ka ci uwarka (‘unprintable’).
1999 F. McCourt 'Tis xv. 118 Weber gives him the finger and says, Your mother, and Buck has to be stopped from attacking him by the duty sergeant who tells us all get out.
c. my mother! = sense 6a.
ΚΠ
1959 N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 93 He roared with laughter now. ‘Oh, my mother.’
1972 C. Achebe Girls at War 107 ‘Plane!’ screamed his boy from the kitchen. ‘My mother!’ screamed Gladys.
7. slang (originally and chiefly U.S.). = motherfucker n. (in various senses).In quot. 1935 mother for you is itself a euphemism for motherfucker (see motherferyer n.).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > goodness and badness > inferiority or baseness > inferior person > [noun] > as abused
warlockOE
swinec1175
beastc1225
wolf's-fista1300
avetrolc1300
congeonc1300
dirtc1300
slimec1315
snipec1325
lurdanc1330
misbegetc1330
sorrowa1350
shrew1362
jordan1377
wirlingc1390
frog?a1400
warianglea1400
wretcha1400
horcop14..
turdc1400
callet1415
lotterela1450
paddock?a1475
souter1478
chuff?a1500
langbain?c1500
cockatrice1508
sow1508
spink1508
wilrone1508
rook?a1513
streaker?a1513
dirt-dauber?1518
marmoset1523
babiona1529
poll-hatcheta1529
bear-wolf1542
misbegotten1546
pig1546
excrement1561
mamzer1562
chuff-cat1563
varlet1566
toada1568
mandrake1568
spider1568
rat1571
bull-beef1573
mole-catcher1573
suppository1573
curtal1578
spider-catcher1579
mongrela1585
roita1585
stickdirta1585
dogfish1589
Poor John1589
dog's facec1590
tar-boxa1592
baboon1592
pot-hunter1592
venom1592
porcupine1594
lick-fingers1595
mouldychaps1595
tripe1595
conundrum1596
fat-guts1598
thornback1599
land-rat1600
midriff1600
stinkardc1600
Tartar1600
tumbril1601
lobster1602
pilcher1602
windfucker?1602
stinker1607
hog rubber1611
shad1612
splay-foot1612
tim1612
whit1612
verdugo1616
renegado1622
fish-facea1625
flea-trapa1625
hound's head1633
mulligrub1633
nightmare1633
toad's-guts1634
bitch-baby1638
shagamuffin1642
shit-breech1648
shitabed1653
snite1653
pissabed1672
bastard1675
swab1687
tar-barrel1695
runt1699
fat-face1740
shit-sack1769
vagabond1842
shick-shack1847
soor1848
b1851
stink-pot1854
molie1871
pig-dog1871
schweinhund1871
wind-sucker1880
fucker1893
cocksucker1894
wart1896
so-and-so1897
swine-hound1899
motherfucker1918
S.O.B.1918
twat1922
mong1926
mucker1929
basket1936
cowson1936
zombie1936
meatball1937
shower1943
chickenshit1945
mugger1945
motherferyer1946
hooer1952
morpion1954
mother1955
mother-raper1959
louser1960
effer1961
salaud1962
gunk1964
scunge1967
the mind > attention and judgement > contempt > condition of being held in contempt > [noun] > state or quality of being contemptible > contemptible person
wormc825
wretchOE
thingOE
hinderlingc1175
harlot?c1225
mixa1300
villain1303
whelpc1330
wonnera1340
bismera1400
vilec1400
beasta1425
creaturec1450
dog bolt1465
fouling?a1475
drivel1478
shit1508
marmoset1523
mammeta1529
pilgarlica1529
pode1528
slave1537
slim1548
skit-brains?1553
grasshopper1556
scavenger1563
old boss1566
rag1566
shrub1566
ketterela1572
shake-rag1571
skybala1572
mumpsimus1573
smatchetc1582
squib1586
scabship1589
vassal1589
baboon1592
Gibraltar1593
polecat1593
mushroom1594
nodc1595
cittern-head1598
nit1598
stockfish1598
cum-twang1599
dish-wash1599
pettitoe1599
mustard-token1600
viliaco1600
cargo1602
stump1602
snotty-nose1604
sprat1605
wormling1605
brock1607
dogfly?1611
shag-rag1611
shack-rag1612
thrum1612
rabbita1616
fitchock1616
unworthy1616
baseling1618
shag1620
glow-worm1624
snip1633
the son of a worm1633
grousea1637
shab1637
wormship1648
muckworm1649
whiffler1659
prig1679
rotten egg1686
prigster1688
begged fool1693
hang-dog1693
bugger1694
reptile1697
squinny1716
snool1718
ramscallion1734
footer1748
jackass1756
hallion1789
skite1790
rattlesnake1791
snot1809
mudworm1814
skunk1816
stirrah1816
spalpeen1817
nyaff1825
skin1825
weed1825
tiger1827
beggar1834
despicability1837
squirt1844
prawn1845
shake1846
white mouse1846
scurf1851
sweep1853
cockroach1856
bummer1857
medlar1859
cunt1860
shuck1862
missing link1863
schweinhund1871
creepa1876
bum1882
trashbag1886
tinhorn1887
snot-rag1888
rodent1889
whelpling1889
pie eatera1891
mess1891
schmuck1892
fucker1893
cheapskate1894
cocksucker1894
gutter-bird1896
perisher1896
skate1896
schmendrick1897
nyamps1900
ullage1901
fink1903
onion1904
punk1904
shitepoke1905
tinhorn sport1906
streeler1907
zob1911
stink1916
motherfucker1918
Oscar1918
shitass1918
shit-face1923
tripe-hound1923
gimp1924
garbage can1925
twerp1925
jughead1926
mong1926
fuck?1927
arsehole1928
dirty dog1928
gazook1928
muzzler1928
roach1929
shite1929
mook1930
lug1931
slug1931
woodchuck1931
crud1932
dip1932
bohunkus1933
lint-head1933
Nimrod1933
warb1933
fuck-piga1935
owl-hoot1934
pissant1935
poot1935
shmegegge1937
motheree1938
motorcycle1938
squiff1939
pendejo1940
snotnose1941
jerkface1942
slag1943
yuck1943
fuckface?1945
fuckhead?1945
shit-head1945
shite-hawk1948
schlub1950
asswipe1953
mother1955
weenie1956
hard-on1958
rass hole1959
schmucko1959
bitch ass1961
effer1961
lamer1961
arsewipe1962
asshole1962
butthole1962
cock1962
dipshit1963
motherfuck1964
dork1965
bumhole1967
mofo1967
tosspot1967
crudball1968
dipstick1968
douche1968
frickface1968
schlong1968
fuckwit1969
rassclaat1969
ass1970
wank1970
fecker1971
wanker1971
butt-fucker1972
slimeball1972
bloodclaat1973
fuckwad1974
mutha1974
suck1974
cocksuck1977
tosser1977
plank1981
sleazebag1981
spastic1981
dweeb1982
bumboclaat1983
dickwad1983
scuzzbag1983
sleazeball1983
butt-face1984
dickweed1984
saddie1985
butt plug1986
jerkweed1988
dick-sucker1989
microcephalic1989
wankstain1990
sadster1992
buttmunch1993
fanny1995
jackhole1996
fassyhole1997
fannybaws2000
fassy2002
1935 (title of song) in M. Leadbitter & N. Slaven Blues Records (1968) 513 Dirty Mother For You.]
1955 S. Whitmore Solo iii. 42 Jaeger said..‘He's..so weak now, he can't blow note one.’ ‘Hell, this mother never could,’ Alfred laughed.
1959 N. Mailer Advts. for Myself (1961) 358 Old K, he's nothing but a mother.
1962 K. Kesey One flew over Cuckoo's Nest 175 Drive, you puny mothers, drive!
1972 Sunday Times 7 May 10/6 ‘Man we must just get out of here before those mothers get us all,’..he shouted at me.
1973 C. Himes Black on Black 209 That old mother, cotton, is gonna kill me yet.
1987 New Breed Sept. 60/1 This spike bayonet, or ‘pig sticker’, is a mean looking ‘mother’.
1995 Represent Apr. 40/1 O'Shane, a mean mother on the guitar.
II. The uterus, and related uses.
8.
a. The uterus. Also figurative. English regional and historical in later use.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > the body > sex organs > female sex organs > [noun] > womb
wombeOE
innethc888
bosom971
bitc1000
motherc1300
cloisterc1386
mawc1390
flanka1398
marisa1400
matricea1400
clausterc1400
mater?a1425
matrix?a1425
wamec1425
bellyc1440
oven?1510
bermother1527
child's bed1535
bairn-bedc1550
uterus1615
kelder1647
ventera1656
childbed1863
c1300 in T. Hunt Pop. Med. 13th-cent. Eng. (1990) v. 251 Item pro subbito assensu matricis, hoc est aþye þe verliche rakynggys off þe modyr to wommanhis hert.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 60v The modir [L. matrix] in a womman is singuler membre disposid as a bladdre.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 140 [Lightning] comeþ out of his modir [L. de matrice sua] as a twynkelynge of an yȝe.
c1450 Practica Phisicalia John of Burgundy in H. Schöffler Mittelengl. Medizinlit. (1919) 211 (MED) Sethe cawle leuys in oyle..it clensit þe modir and makyth womenn haue here termys.
a1500 in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 632 Matrix, modure.
1545 T. Raynald in tr. E. Roesslin Byrth of Mankynde i. sig. E.iii These thre woordes, the matrix, the mother, and the wombe do sygnyfie but one thyng.
1609 P. Holland tr. Ammianus Marcellinus Rom. Hist. 55 The daintie meat made of the mother..of a young sow.
1610 A. Willet Hexapla in Danielem 291 That first law was the mother and wombe as it were of all Gods precepts.
1657 W. Coles Adam in Eden ix. 20 The lesser Lavander is much commended in all Diseases of the Mother.
1681 W. Robertson Phraseologia generalis (1693) 897 The mother or womb; matrix.
1706 Phillips's New World of Words (new ed.) at Hystera The Mother or Womb.
1888 F. T. Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk. (at cited word) 'Tis a ter'ble complaint 'bout ewes, 'most everybody hereabout 've a 'ad bad luck. I've lost a lot sure 'nough; the mother o'm do come out.
b. suffocation (also rising, fit) of the mother: = sense 9. Now historical.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > mental health > mental illness > degree or type of mental illness > [noun] > psychoneurosis > hysteria
mother?c1450
suffocation of the womb, matrix, motherc1550
strangulation of the matrix or womb1601
hysterica passio1603
suffocation (also rising, fit) of the mother1615
hysteric passion1655
tarantism1656
mother-fit1657
rising of the matrix1660
hysteria1757
tarantulism1774
pithiatism1910
mothersickness1993
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders of internal organs > convulsive or paralytic disorders > [noun] > hysteria > fit of
suffocation (also rising, fit) of the mother1615
mother-fit1657
hysterics1664
hystericals1797
conniption1833
c1450 J. Metham Palmistry (Garrett) in Wks. (1916) 106 (MED) Yt sygnyfyith that..yff yt be a woman, sche schuld dey off chyld-byrth or ellys off rysyng off the modyr.
c1450 in W. R. Dawson Leechbk. (1934) 188 (MED) For the suffocacion of the modir lat hir receyue þe smoke of turpentyne laid upon the coles þorow hir mouth.
1526 Grete Herball sig. Ddiii/2 Suffocacyon of the matryce or moder, is whan a woman through euyll dysposycyon of the matryce leseth her colour, aduyce and remembraunce, and it is grete payne.
1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. 40 The rising or suffocation of the mother in women,..it cureth.
1615 H. Crooke Μικροκοσμογραϕια 231 Many passions called Hystericæ, which we call fits of the Mother.
1626 F. Bacon Sylua Syluarum §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.
1707 G. Farquhar Beaux Stratagem i. 3 She cures..Fits of the Mother in Women.
1993 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 148 399 The suffocation of the mother can be understood as anxiety with dyspnea.
9. Medicine. Usually with the. A medical condition thought to arise from a disorder of the uterus, esp. its (supposed) upward displacement against other organs. Also: a condition with similar symptoms in men and children. Cf. sense 8b. Now historical.The major symptoms of this condition appear to have been a sensation of fullness in the abdomen and chest with difficulty in breathing or choking; it was later known as hysteria (cf. hysteria n. 1).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders of internal organs > convulsive or paralytic disorders > [noun] > hysteria
mother?c1450
rising of the motherc1450
suffocation of the womb, matrix, motherc1550
strangulation of the matrix or womb1601
hysterica passio1603
hysterical passion1623
hysteric passion1655
rising of the matrix1660
hystericism1710
globus hystericus1741
globe1751
hysteria1757
globus1833
pseudorabies1892
the world > health and disease > mental health > mental illness > degree or type of mental illness > [noun] > psychoneurosis > hysteria
mother?c1450
suffocation of the womb, matrix, motherc1550
strangulation of the matrix or womb1601
hysterica passio1603
suffocation (also rising, fit) of the mother1615
hysteric passion1655
tarantism1656
mother-fit1657
rising of the matrix1660
hysteria1757
tarantulism1774
pithiatism1910
mothersickness1993
?c1450 in Anglia (1896) 18 315 (MED) Þis erbe..is good to playster and many oþer thyng, For þe moder and to drynkyng.
1540 R. Jonas tr. E. Roesslin Byrth of Mankynde ii. f. lixv [Diseases of infants.] Fearefulnes in the dreames, the mother, yssuyng out of the fondament gut.
1607 E. Topsell Hist. Foure-footed Beastes 132 It pacifieth the melt,..expelleth away mothes [1658 mothers].
1608 W. Shakespeare King Lear vii. 225 O how this mother swels vp toward my hart, Historica passio downe thou climing sorrow. View more context for this quotation
1650 T. Venner Via Recta (rev. ed.) iii. 63 It is not fit for women to use that are subject to hystericall fits, which they call the Mother.
1672 J. Josselyn New-Englands Rarities 86 Mayweed, excellent for the mother.
1792 E. Sibly New & Compl. Illustr. Occult Sci. (new ed.) 103 The particular diseases of this sign are..hardness of the spleen, mother, hypocondriac melancholy.
1820 J. Mair Tyro's Dict. (ed. 10) 373 Strangulatus, a disease in women called the mother.
1942 Biometrika 32 205 Then he wondered whether Stopping of the Stomach might not be Mother.
1997 R. A. Foakes in W. Shakespeare King Lear 242 It was called ‘Passio Hysterica’, or, in English, the mother, or the suffocation of the mother.
III. Scientific and technical applications.
10.
a. Chiefly in Geology, Biology, Anatomy, etc. The source of a material substance or object; a main stem or channel from which branches arise; a structure that gives rise to similar structures; the parent stock on which something grows.
ΚΠ
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 205 Þe saphier is Carbuncles mooder, ffor..þet carbuncle is ygendred in saphire veynes.
1604 E. Grimeston tr. J. de Acosta Nat. & Morall Hist. Indies v. xviii. 378 Saying, that these shells were daughters of the sea, the mother of all waters.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Artere aorte, the great Arterie, mother Arterie, or mother of arteries.
1646 J. Hope Diary in Misc. Sc. Hist. Soc. (1958) IX. 178 By the candle light they wer neere a color bot by the daylight the stonne somewhat whytter, nather was ther any color of mother.
1668 N. Culpeper & A. Cole tr. T. Bartholin Anat. (new ed.) Man. i. iii. 306 All the Veins of the whole Body are referred unto two as their Mothers.
1676 J. Evelyn Philos. Disc. Earth 44 Water..was by some thought to be the Mother of Earth.
1681 N. Grew Musæum Regalis Societatis iii. i. iv. 283 Another clear Crystal, growing on a Semiperspicuous Mother.
1868 J. N. Lockyer Elem. Lessons Astron. (1879) iii. §15 85 Aqueous vapour is the great mother of clouds.
1940 F. F. Grout Kemp's Handbk. Rocks (ed. 6) viii. 180 (caption) Mineral charcoal or ‘mother of coal’, Colorado.
1971 Nature 36 Feb. 603/2 The daughter nucleus which recoils from the rim of the wheel as the result of alpha particle decay of its mother.
b. Botany. = mother plant n. at Compounds 7.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > by family relationships > [noun] > parent plant
mother plant1656
mother1691
1691 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 16 529 From whence springs up a young Plant, which at last is of its own accord as it were weaned and separated from its Mother.
1721 R. Bradley Philos. Acct. Wks. Nature 41 The fruit of the Indian Fig..will strike Root and become a Plant as perfect as the mother it was taken from.
1992 Canad. Gardening June 19/2 Roots start growing from the node in a few months; when there are at least a fistful of roots, cut the top plant away from the mother and pot it up.
†11. Anatomy. The dura mater or pia mater of the brain. Usually with distinguishing word, esp. in hard mother (the dura mater) and soft (also †dear, †mild, †near) mother (the pia mater). Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > the body > nervous system > cerebrospinal axis > [noun] > membranes > dura mater
tayc1350
hard mothera1398
dura materc1400
dura1882
pachymeninx1890
the world > life > the body > nervous system > cerebrospinal axis > [noun] > membranes > pia mater
pia matera1398
soft (also dear, mild, near) mothera1398
rind1585
godly mother1594
pia1877
pia-arachnoid1881
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 39 Þe harde modir & þe mylde modir.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 39 To defende þe brayn, tweye wedes ben nedeful, þat ben I-clepid þe modres [L. matres] of þe brayn.
1495 Trevisa's Bartholomeus De Proprietatibus Rerum (de Worde) v. iii. 106 The seconde webbe and skynne of the brayne hyghte pia mater the meke moder.
a1500 tr. Lanfranc Sci. Cirurgie (Wellcome) f. 22v Begyn to ley vpon þe soft modir [L. duram matrem] a sotill powedr' made of' encence that it go Adown' by the brayn'.
?1541 R. Copland Guy de Chauliac's Questyonary Cyrurgyens ii. sig. Ej The soft moder by vaynes.
1594 T. Bowes tr. P. de la Primaudaye French Acad. II. 149 Besides this skinne, there is another named the Godly mother, which is fine and very slender.
1615 H. Crooke Μικροκοσμογραϕια 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.
12. The thickest plate of an astrolabe; = mater n.1 2. Now historical.Only in and with reference to Chaucer's Treatise on the Astrolabe.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the universe > cosmology > science of observation > astronomical instruments > [noun] > astrolabe > mater
motherc1400
mater1585
c1400 ( G. Chaucer Treat. Astrolabe (Brussels) (1940) i. §2. f. 76 The moder of thyn astrelabie is the thikkest plate.
1987 J. Reidy in L. D. Benson Riverside Chaucer 1093/2 The body, called the ‘mother’, of the instrument [sc. the astrolabe] was a metal disk, usually brass, pierced by a small, central hole, and surrounded by a thicker metal rim so as to form a circular depression or well on one side, the front, or ‘womb’ side.
13. Each of the four primary figures of a geomantic oracle.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > expectation > foresight, foreknowledge > prediction, foretelling > divination by symbols, letters, figures, etc. > [noun] > by shapes or figures > figures in geomancy
mother1591
nephew1591
linea1593
1591 F. Sparry tr. C. de Cattan 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.
1653 R. Saunders Physiognomie i. 32 I erected my Figure, drawing from my points and lines, a Mother.
1889 Sat. 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.
1977 S. Skinner Oracle of Geomancy iv. 40 The four geomantic figures..called the four Mothers..are the basis for the whole geomantic chart.
1977 S. Skinner Oracle of Geomancy v. 47 Make sixteen rows of random dots... Divide..into four groups of four lines... Count each line and mark down two dots for..even and one dot for an odd number... Write the four figures, so formed..from right to left, side by side. These are the four Mothers.
†14. Chemistry. Frequently in plural, or in mother of —. Mother liquor (see Compounds 7); esp. that of a particular solid. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > chemistry > crystallography (general) > crystallization > [noun] > the liquid left after
mother1611
mother-water1651
mother liquor?1698
mother liquid1830
1611 J. Florio Queen Anna's New World of Words at Acqua Maestra The master-water. Salt-peeter men call it mother of Salt peeter.
1673 J. Ray Coll. Eng. Words 136 (Manner of making Vitriol) The liquor that remains after the vitriol is crystallized, they call the mother.
1679 Philos. Trans. 1677 (Royal Soc.) 12 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.
1681 N. Grew Musæum Regalis Societatis iii. §iii. i. 343 The Lee after the first shooting of the Alum; is called Mothers.
1758 A. Reid tr. P. J. Macquer Elements Theory & Pract. 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.
1839 Penny 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.
15. In traditional Chinese medicine, esp. acupuncture: an organ of the body regarded as the source of nourishment of the next corresponding organ in the five element cycle (see element n. Additions); an organ to which treatment may be given in order to heal or ‘tonify’ another organ. Cf. mother–son adj. 2.
ΚΠ
1741 tr. P. D. Halde Hist. China (ed. 3) iii. 370 The Heart is The Son of The Liver, which has The Kidneys for its Mother.
1962 F. Mann Acupuncture vi. 69 As the Qi..flows through the meridians in a certain order, the preceding organ (the ‘mother’) receives the energy first and gives it on to that which follows (the ‘son’).
1972 Y. Manaka & I. A. Urquhart Layman's Guide Acupuncture ii. ix. 118 The mother-son rule is the principle that an element is ‘son’ to the one preceding it in the cycle of generation and ‘mother’ of the one following it... Following the mother-son rule, the heart constrictor is mother of the spleen-pancreas (earth) and son of the liver (wood).
1987 M. Nightingale Acupuncture iv. 68 The nourishing cycle is depicted by a clockwise sequence..in which each yin element is regarded as the ‘mother’ of the succeeding one in the circle.
16. In full artificial mother. An artificial brooder for young poultry. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > keeping birds > poultry-keeping > [noun] > poultry-rearing equipment
nest-egg1579
mother1807
brood-basket1848
incubator1857
crammer1887
foster-mother1907
1807 Trans. Soc. Arts 25 25 Artificial mothers for the chickens to run under.
1830 ‘B. Moubray’ Domest. Poultry (ed. 6) 48 An artificial mother cannot be dispensed with, under which the chickens may brood and shelter.
a1884 E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech. Suppl. 618/2 Mother, the hen-mother at Baker's Cresshill poultry farm is of hollow zinc, filled with hot water.
1906 Westm. Gaz. 14 Nov. 8/3 Incubators, and poultry ‘mothers’.
1909 L. H. Bailey Cycl. Amer. Agric. III. 543/2 For this purpose an artificial mother is provided, commonly called a brooder.
†17. A cask or vat used in vinegar-making. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > food manufacture and preparation > manufacture of other foodstuffs > [noun] > vinegar manufacture > vessels or vats used in vinegar manufacture
rape1805
mother1830
underback1875
1830 M. Donovan Domest. Econ. I. ix. 329 Into each vat or mother are poured twenty-two gallons of good vinegar boiling.
1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 3 The vessels employed for carrying on the fermentation are casks, called mothers.
†18. The living tissue beneath the bark of a cork oak. Obsolete. rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > part of plant > cell or aggregate tissue > [noun] > tissue > cambium or periderm
cambium1672
peridermis1839
periderm1849
mother1862
phelloderm1875
phellogen1875
suber1913
1862 Illustr. London News 25 Jan. 101/1 The first act of the cultivator is to separate it [sc. the ‘male’] from the trunk, which thus leaves exposed the liber, termed ‘mother’.
19. Nautical. A mother ship. rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > war vessel > [noun] > torpedo boat > ship having charge of
mother ship1890
mother1907
1907 Daily Chron. 5 Aug. 4/4 Four ‘mothers’ and the ‘Sapphire’, flagship of Admiral Montgomerie.
20. 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, compact discs, etc.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > record > recording or reproducing sound or visual material > sound recording and reproduction > a sound recording > [noun] > record or disc > matrix or negative
master1904
matrix1904
master matrix1918
mother1918
negative1918
stamper1918
1918 H. Seymour Reprod. 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’.
1935 H. C. Bryson Gramophone Rec. 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.
1952 J. W. Godfrey & S. W. Amos Sound Recording & Reprod. v. 139 A second negative copy known as the ‘stamper’ or ‘working matrix’ is obtained from the mother.
1968 Jazz 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.
1980 Musicians Only 26 Apr. 14 The mother is pronounced okay and..goes back in the tank, this time to grow negative stampers.
1988 V. Capel Audio & Hi-Fi Engineer's Pocket Bk. 79 Further electroplating of these mothers produce a series of negative sons that serve as the actual stampers.
21. Computing and Linguistics. In a tree diagram, esp. a phrase-marker: a node which immediately dominates or is directly superordinate to a lower node or nodes.
ΚΠ
1968 D. Knuth Art Computer Programming I. ii. 307 Some authors use the feminine designations ‘mother, daughter, sister’ instead of ‘father, son, brother’.
1975 G. Sampson in Jrnl. Linguistics 11 1 That is, nodes may not branch upwards. We shall call property (iii) the single mother conditiion.
1978 R. A. Hudson in Language 54 374 By convention, a node that has two mothers, such as node 1, has its position determined by the sequence rules for the higher mother.
1989 ICAME Jrnl. 13 22 The mother is itself found immediately preceding the first occurrence of that number in the tree.
1994 F. Cornish in Lingua 93 245 The new node is the after-movement mother of the moved element and a second node, and..the new mother node bears the label of its non-moved daughter.

Phrases

†P1. Proverbial phrases.
a. to have too much of one's mother's blessing: to be unreasonably prudish or scrupulous. Obsolete.
ΚΠ
1606 L. Bryskett Disc. Ciuill 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.
1623 J. Stradling Beati Pacifici cclxviii. 54 One may haue too much of his mothers blessing.
b. to give (a person) one's mother for a maid: an expression used to emphasize the unlikelihood of a specified action, event, etc., ever taking place. Obsolete.
ΚΠ
a1640 J. Rous in MS Ashm. 36 lf. 112 If euor Ice doe come heare againe, Ice zaid, Chil give thee my Mother vor a maid.
a1689 A. Behn Younger Brother (1696) i. ii. 8 If ever you catch me at your Damn'd Clubs again, I'll give you my Mother for a Maid.
P2. colloquial.
a. does your mother know you're out? and variants: a jeering or condescending question addressed to a person whose behaviour is regarded as juvenile or inappropriate.
ΚΠ
1837 J. S. Coyne Queer Subj. i. iv. 10 Who are you? does your mother know you're out?
1842 R. H. Barham Misadventures Margate in Ingoldsby Legends 2nd Ser. 156 Sir, does your mother know that you are out?
1872 O. W. Holmes Poet at Breakfast-table in Wks. (1892) III. 323 The saucy question, ‘Does your mother know you're out?’ was the very same that Horace addressed to the bore who attacked him in the Via Sacra.
1951 N. Marsh Opening Night i. 23 ‘Does yer mother know you're aht?’ he asked ironically... She was oppressed with renewed loneliness and fear.
1975 ‘C. Aird’ Slight Mourning vii. 65 ‘Theft during the hours of darkness,’ intoned Leeyes gloomily. ‘Does his mother know he's out?’
b. just like mother makes and variants: having the good qualities of home cooking; exactly to one's taste. Also in extended use.
ΚΠ
1866 F. Moore Women of War 360 If I could only get a cup of tea like mother made, I believe I should get well.
1898 W. P. Ridge Mord Em'ly x. 142 Beef Pudding same like Mother makes!
1919 P. G. Wodehouse 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.
1927 W. E. Collinson Contemp. Eng. 52 The notice outside some eating-houses, beef-steak pie like mother makes it!
1975 D. 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.
2001 New Straits Times (Malaysia) (Nexis) 2 June 4 Let's just say it's not like what mother used to make.
c. to be mother: to serve out food or drink; spec. to be the person who pours the tea.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > serving food > [verb (intransitive)]
servec1275
sewc1440
pour1539
to wait on the cup, the trencher, the table1552
sewerc1553
wait1568
to wait up1654
to serve away1709
help1805
to wait (the) table1827
to sling hash1860
to be mother1934
the world > food and drink > drink > providing or serving drink > serving tea or coffee > [verb (intransitive)] > pour tea
pour1906
to be mother1934
1926 G. B. Shaw Glimpse of Reality in Transl. & Tomfooleries 184 Let us get to work at the supper. You shall be the mother of the family and give us our portions, Giulietta.]
1934 P. Hamilton Plains of Cement 60 ‘Shall I be mother?’, said Ella, and started to pour out the tea.
1958 ‘J. Brogan’ Cummings Rep. ii. 17 We'll go and have tea, and you be Mother.
1967 J. Porter Dover & Unkindest Cut iv. 41 MacGregor, hearing the tea cups rattling outside..opened the door again. ‘Shall I be mother, sir?’
1974 J. 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.
1983 A. Bleasdale Jobs for Boys xvi. 27 As Chrissie is nearest the kettle he is about to be mother.
d. English regional. black (also dark) over Bill's (also Will's) mother's and variants: (of the sky) overcast with dark clouds in a specified direction, esp. as an indication of coming rain. Also occasionally in extended use.
ΚΠ
1930 Notes & Queries 21 June 441/2 There is a very old Sussex saying, when vast clouds appear on the horizon, namely, ‘It looks pretty black over Will's mother's.’
1958 Amateur Historian 4 34 Most of our showers and persistent rains come from the south-west; and, when a storm is blowing up from that direction, one often hears people say: ‘We shall soon have rain; it's getting dark over Will's Mother's.’
1977 Spectator 26 Mar. 8/3 As they say in the Midlands when bad tidings are clearly imminent, ‘It's looking black over Bill's mother's place.’
1993 Daily Mail (Nexis) 13 Sept. 34 It looks bad over Will's mother.
2002 A. Fine Jamie & Angus Stories 102 I reckon it's getting a little bit black over Bill's mother's.
e. Chiefly British. some mothers do 'ave 'em and variants: an expression of exasperation, derision, etc., usually at a person's perceived clumsy, erratic, or idiotic actions or behaviour.Apparently originally a Lancashire saying popularized, as don't some mothers 'ave 'em, by James Robertson ‘Jimmy’ Clitheroe in his BBC radio programme The Clitheroe Kid, which ran from 1958 to 1972 (see E. Partridge Dict. Catch Phrases (ed. 2) 279/2). The phrase gained further currency as the title of the BBC television comedy series Some Mothers do 'ave 'Em (1973–8), in which Michael Crawford starred as the clumsy, accident-prone Frank Spencer.
ΚΠ
1960 E. Morgan You're Long Time Dead 371 Lord, some mothers do 'ave 'em, here we go again.
1975 ‘E. Ferrars’ Cup & Hip vi. 82 ‘Some mothers do have 'em’, she said drily. ‘Do you think that bright idea of yours would make Helen feel better?’
1992 G. M. Fraser Quartered Safe out Here 17 ‘Christ, some mothers don't 'alf' ave 'em! An educated sod like you—I seen you doin' bleedin' crosswords.’ He cackled and shook his head.
2001 Irish Times (Nexis) 27 Jan. 72 Some mothers do 'ave 'em, and Margaret Drabble's Mommie Dearest drew the short straw with a daughter some feel has used her blood for ink.

Compounds

C1. General attributive.
a. Chiefly literary and poetic. With sense ‘of or relating to a mother’.
mother arms n.
ΚΠ
a1826 R. Heber Poet. Wks. (1841) 232 She ceas'd, and round his linked hauberk threw Her mother arms.
1843 T. Carlyle Past & Present iii. viii. 235 In how many ways..does she, as with blessed mother-arms, enfold us all!
1916 E. R. Burroughs Beasts of Tarzan ix. 141 Quick hands snatched the bundle from the cook, and hungry mother arms folded the sleeping infant to her breast.
1991 M. S. Hammond World without End in Out of Canaan 48 I'm embroidered with welts, smocked and ruched, with stubs sticking out, my mother arms chopped off.
mother-bosom n.
ΚΠ
1834 T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus in Fraser's Mag. Mar. 307/2 Into the wilds of Nature; as if in her mother-bosom he would seek healing.
1906 C. M. Doughty Dawn in Brit. IV. xv. 127 Uneath, their shrill swift chariots..touch the mother-bosom of the ground.
mother heart n.
ΚΠ
1839 E. S. Wortley Visionary iii. cccxxxi. 343 Once more on England's hallowed shores I tread; Once more come home!—unto thy Mother-heart, My Land of Birth and Love!
1918 W. M. Kirkland Joys of being Woman ix. 90 Strange paradox that the first emotion of the baby soul should be bitterness against all those contrivances of decency, those hemstitched linens and embroidered flannels, through which the mother heart eased its brooding love.
mother-instinct n.
ΚΠ
1860 Ladies' Repository May 280/1 The wife and mother instinct would not allow her to remain long in the dark.]
1874 Appletons' Jrnl. Sept. 392/2 The mother-instinct, dormant through all these childless years, seems roused within me at last!
1881 ‘M. Twain’ Prince & Pauper 114 Her sharp mother-instinct seemed to detect it.
1986 J. Joseph Persephone xxv. 127 The mother-instinct of this ‘redoubtable’ lady seems to have developed rather late in the day.
mother-mind n.
ΚΠ
1647 A. Cowley Mistresse 16 Thoughts..Fair and chast, as Mother-Mind.
1953 R. Graves Poems 20 ‘Let them play,’ her mother-mind repeats.
1992 R. Kelly Strange Market 133 She also was, every circumstance my sister, every jest my brother, and of this mother mind we both are fleshed.
mother-pain n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [noun] > labour or pains
cothec1000
throea1200
pining throesc1225
travailc1300
showera1350
paina1398
travailinga1400
throng1540
labouring1598
travail pang1652
travail pain1662
labour pains1703
mother-pain1709
mother-pang1710
breeding sicknessa1714
bearing pain1787
troublea1825
birth throe1837
1709 D. Manley Secret Mem. (ed. 2) II. 34 When the Mother-Pains came upon [her].
1947 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 17 May 8 When day is here, and hunger sucks the nipple-drops of blood and sweat that swell the mother pain.
1997 G. Gildner Bunker in Parsley Fields ii. 33 A father whose first-born came to assist at her sister's birth, stroking the mother-pain.
mother-pang n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > source or principle of life > birth > confinement > [noun] > labour or pains
cothec1000
throea1200
pining throesc1225
travailc1300
showera1350
paina1398
travailinga1400
throng1540
labouring1598
travail pang1652
travail pain1662
labour pains1703
mother-pain1709
mother-pang1710
breeding sicknessa1714
bearing pain1787
troublea1825
birth throe1837
1710 D. Manley Mem. Europe I. i. 1 Like..Abortives under the Mother-Pangs.
1819 J. H. Payne Brutus v. iii To strike their country in the mother-pangs Of struggling child-birth.
1879 E. J. Pfeiffer Quarterman's Grace 11 The girl upon the stair..Had waked in her some mother-pang.
mother-pity n.
ΚΠ
1878 W. Pater Wks. (1901) V. 110 His [sc. Charles Lamb's] simple mother-pity for those who suffer.
mother-sentiment n.
ΚΠ
1920 T. P. Nunn Education xii. 146 The mother-sentiment appears, to be followed..by the father-sentiment.
mother-smile n.
ΚΠ
1838 E. B. Browning Rom. Ganges xix Press deeper down thy mother-smile His glossy curls among.
1875 H. Ellison Stones from Quarry 233 In sunshine of thy Mother-smile to bask.
mother-want n.
ΚΠ
1856 E. B. Browning Aurora Leigh i. 2 I felt a mother-want about the world.
b. With sense ‘inherited or learned from one's mother, native’, as mother dialect, mother-sense, mother speech, mother-temper, etc. Cf. mother tongue n., mother wit n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > reason, faculty of reasoning > common sense > [noun]
witc1175
sensea1382
conscience1449
mother witc1475
common wit1517
common sense1536
philosophy1557
good sense?1562
sconce1567
mother-sense1603
ingenuity1651
bonsense1681
rumgumption1686
nous1706
gumption?1719
rummlegumption1751
savvy1785
horse sense1832
kokum1848
sabe1872
common1899
marbles1902
gump1920
loaf1925
1603 G. Owen Descr. Penbrokshire (1892) iii. 36 For otherwise the Englishe tongue had not ben theire comon and mother speache as it was.
1622 F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Phylaster (new ed.) v. 70 Let..your nimble tongs forget your mother Gibberish.
1644 J. Milton Of Educ. 2 He were nothing so much to be esteem'd a learned man, as any..tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only.
1729 W. Law Serious Call xix. 348 As we call our first language our mother-tongue, so we may as justly call our first tempers our mother-tempers.
1851 G. Borrow Lavengro xvii You want two things, brother: mother sense, and gentle Rommany.
1868 W. Barnes Poems Rural Life Pref. My homely poems in our Dorset mother-speech.
1904 J. Wells Life J. H. Wilson vi. 64 A racy and powerful evangelist in his mother-Scotch.
1997 Eng. World-wide 18 2 Ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia was largely language-based, i.e. ethnicity was defined by the mother dialect.
C2. Appositive.
a. With sense ‘that is the source or origin of others, or (occasionally) that fulfils a protective or nurturing role’, as mother colony, mother-lodge, mother vein, etc. See also motherland n., mother ship n.2
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > causation > source or origin > [adjective]
mother?c1225
originalc1350
radicala1398
primitive?a1425
fundamentalc1449
primordial?a1450
primea1500
primary1565
nativea1592
fundamentive1593
primordiate1599
primara1603
remote1605
originousa1637
originary1638
parental1647
principiate1654
fontal1656
underivative1656
underived1656
fountainous1662
first hand1699
matricular1793
first-handed1855
protomorphic1887
?c1225 (?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 161 Ȝe habbeð an dale iherd..of þeo þe me cleopeð seoue moder sunnen.
1325 in J. Robertson Illustr. Topogr. & Antiq. Aberdeen & Banff (1857) III. 547 Incipiendo ad inferiorem finem de la Modirlech qui vocatur Gramos et sic ambulando [etc.].
1479 in J. Raine Priory of Hexham (1865) II. 24 (MED) Molendinum..cum stagno et le modir-dame.
1593 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie i. iii. 53 Those principall & mother elements of the world, wherof all things in this lower world are made.
1604 S. Hieron Preachers Plea in Wks. (1620) I. 484 Because ignorance is a mother sin, therefore [etc.].
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Veine saphene, the mother veine.
?1611 G. Chapman tr. Homer Iliads xxii. 302 Till they reacht, where those two mother springs, Of deepe Scamander, pour'd abroad, their siluer murmurings.
1691 J. Norris Pract. Disc. Divine Subj. 118 Love..is a general Mother Vertue, and the principle of a more particular and special Obedience.
1763 J. Mills New Syst. Pract. Husbandry IV. 403 The layers..must be allowed two years to take root, before they are cut off from the mother-tree.
1784 M. Weighton Drainage Award 9 The mother drain, or navigable canal, now made.
1791 E. Darwin Bot. Garden: Pt. I i. 32 Lifts proud Anteus from his mother-plains.
1798 S. T. Coleridge Fears in Solitude 9 O dear Britain! O my mother Isle!
1824 T. De Quincey Historico-crit. Inq. Rosicrucians & Free-masons in London Mag. Jan. 7 These orders have degrees—many or few according to the constitution of the several mother-lodges.
1854 A. P. Stanley Hist. Memorials Canterbury (1857) i. 26 The Cathedral of Canterbury [is] the mother cathedral of England.
1874 R. W. Raymond Statistics 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.
1897 J. J. Knight Brisbane 25 The mother colony had to be fought.
1907 Practitioner Aug. 320 These granules consist of a zymogen, or mother-ferment, which is called trypsinogen.
1937 M. Covarrubias Island of Bali iv. 75 When the [rice] field is prepared, the mother-seed, which has been picked from the largest and most beautiful ears, is soaked for two days and two nights, then spread on a mat and sprinkled with water until the germ breaks through.
1964 P. F. Anson Bishops at Large ix. 421 St Dunstan's Abbey was advertised as ‘the Mother-Community’.
1973 Country Life 31 May 1544/2 While St. Kitts is now completely independent in internal matters, its people..recall with pride the island's role as the ‘Mother Colony’ for the British Empire in the Caribbean.
b. With sense ‘designating an animal that is a mother, or (more generally) is of breeding age’, as mother cat, mother cow, mother sheep, etc.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > motherhood > [adjective] > that is a mother
mothera1400
matern?a1513
maternal1748
a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 14969 (MED) A moder ass yee sal þar find, And yee hir sal vn-do Vte of hir band.
?1465 R. Calle in Paston Lett. & Papers (2004) I. 136 (note) There lefte be-hynde of Heylesdon folde of my mastre schepe xlj modreschep.
1506 T. Pynnowe Will in A. Jobson Window in Suffolk (1962) i. 21 I bequethe to eche of my godchildren a mother scheep.
1630 in R. Griffiths Ess. Jurisdict. 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.
1697 J. Dryden tr. Virgil Georgics iii, in tr. Virgil Wks. 99 The Mother Cow must wear a low'ring look. View more context for this quotation
1793 W. Cowper Tale 45 The mother-bird is gone to sea.
1817 S. T. Coleridge Zapolya ii. i. 77 The mother-falcon hath her nest above it.
1867 Daily Herald (San Antonio, Texas) 20 June The term maverick which was formerly applied to unbranded yearlings is now applied to every calf which can be separated from the mother cow.
1882 E. A. Floyer Unexplored Baluchistan 202 Then there were four old mother goats.
1911 E. M. Clowes On Wallaby xi. 278 I..particularly remember one snow-white mother-kangaroo I once saw, a rare and beautiful creature.
1946 Nature 26 Oct. 586/2 Both ascribe recent failures of efforts to raise the population of remnants of natural oyster beds to inadequate properties of the mother-oysters used.
1975 Evening Telegram (St. John's, Newfoundland) 2 July 3 The gill nets..were scooping up all the large or ‘mother’ cod.
1981 E. Jolley Newspaper Claremont St. iii. 22 Weekly..had been more and more filled with admiration for this mother cat.
c. With sense ‘designating a woman or female figure who is a mother’. See also mother goddess n.
ΚΠ
1558 T. Phaer tr. Virgil Seuen First Bks. Eneidos i. sig. Biv My mother goddesse taught my way, as destny dyd me gyde.
1673 Gentlewomans Compan. 3 Be ye Mother-patterns of Virtue to your Daughters.
1759 J. Grainger tr. Tibullus Elegies I. 41 Thee, Orpheus, what avail'd..Thy Mother-muse and beast-enchanting song.
1844 J. Ballantyne Miller of Deanhaugh (1869) 45 Mither wives and laddie weans, Attack them whiles wi' clods and stanes.
1957 R. W. Zandvoort in Wiener Beiträge 65 269 This is what a mother-evacuee said.
1960 B. Malinowski Sex & Repression in Savage Society 26 ‘Matriarchate’, the rule of the mother, does not in any way entail a stern, terrible mother-virago.
1977 B. Levin in Sunday Times 30 Oct. 38/7 Shelvesful of books discuss which of his characters represent the Id, and which the Mother-Archetype.
d. Medicine and Biology. Designating a structure which gives rise to similar, often smaller, structures. Cf. daughter n. 7, mother cell n. at Compounds 7.
ΚΠ
1874 Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. 14 304 The mother-meristem of the fibro-vascular system.
a1883 C. H. Fagge Princ. & Pract. Med. (1886) I. 28 In such cases [of infection by inoculation] however, there is developed a ‘primary’ or ‘mother-vesicle’.
1898 H. C. Porter tr. E. Strasburger et al. Text-bk. Bot. i. i. 62 The changes occurring in a mother nucleus preparatory to division are termed the prophases of the karyokinesis.
1977 J. L. Harper Population Biol. Plants 19 The growth of a population of fronds from a mother frond is of course the growth of a clone.
1996 Jrnl. Cell Biol. 134 949 Fatty acid is directly or indirectly required for separating the mother nucleus into two equal daughters.
C3.
a. Objective.
(a)
mother-murderer n.
ΚΠ
1850 J. S. Blackie tr. Æschylus Lyrical Dramas I. 195 From hearth and home we chase All mother-murderers.
1875 W. B. Scott Poems 234 Lo there! The mother-murderer!
1998 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 2 May 24 Fear am on point of becoming mother murderer and writing book about it to pay for builder.
mother-slayer n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > death > killing > killer for specific reason or type of person > [noun] > of relatives > of parent > of mother
mother queller1440
mother-slayer?c1475
matricide1632
OE Ælfric Gloss. (St. John's Oxf.) 319 Matricida, moderslaga.]
?c1475 Catholicon Anglicum (BL Add. 15562) f. 82 A modyrslaer, matricida.
c1480 (a1400) St. Mary Magdalen 462 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) I. 269 Allace! nov is þe barne sa borne modyr-slaar.
1896 J. Curtin tr. H. Sienkiewicz Quo Vadis v. 40 Why didst thou not glorify the death of Britannicus, and repeat panegyrics in honor of the mother-slayer?
(b)
mother-murdering adj.
ΚΠ
1592 Countess of Pembroke tr. R. Garnier Antonius i. sig. F3 Orestes torche, Which sometimes burnt his mother-murdering soule.
1850 J. S. Blackie tr. Æschylus Lyrical Dramas I. 74 The gods A mother-murdering shoot shall send from far To avenge his sire.
b. Instrumental.
mother-dominated adj.
ΚΠ
1963 Times 23 Apr. 16/4 The mother-dominated hero.
1993 W. Weaver tr. U. Eco Misreadings 117 The phase of mother-dominated education will pass, the rule of the teddy bear will decline and fall.
† mother-murdered adj. Obsolete
ΚΠ
c1602 C. Marlowe tr. Ovid Elegies ii. xiv. sig. D2 Mother-murtherd Itis.
c. Locative.
mother-centred adj.
ΚΠ
1956 R. Firth & J. Djamour in R. Firth Two Stud. 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.
1991 J. Sayers Mothering Psychoanal. i. 11 Most of all, feminists have been attracted to mother-centred psychoanalysis because it apparently valorizes women's work, at least as mothers.
d. Parasynthetic.
mother-hearted adj.
ΚΠ
1843 A. T. de Vere Search after Proserpine 194 With the dark, cool violets swathing A full bosom mother-hearted.
1853 F. S. Mines Presbyterian Clergyman looking for Church 488 The Mother-hearted bounties of the Catholic religion.
1876 J. Todhunter Laurella 98 O virgin-cheeked and mother-hearted May, Madonna of the months!
1989 Signs 15 79 (title) Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911): theology of the mother-hearted God.
C4. slang (originally and chiefly U.S.). Objective, forming nouns and adjectives acting as partial (more or less coarse) euphemisms for motherfucker n. or motherfucking adj. and adv. Cf. motherferyer n., mothering adj.1 2, mother-loving adj. 2.
a.
mother-humper n.
ΚΠ
1963 T. Doulis Path for our Valor vi. 81 Death, I think, you mother-humper.
1970 J. Grissim Country Mus. 281 Anybody that can follow me is a motha-humper.
1986 J. C. Stinson & J. Carabatsos Heartbreak Ridge 77 Let's smoke this motherhumper's ass.
2000 T. Clancy Bear & Dragon v. 78 Getting the crude out is going to be a mother-humper.
mother-jumper n.
ΚΠ
1950 H. Ellson Tomboy 7 It was that no good mother-jumper that owns the store.
1957 L. Margulies Young Punks 43 But this motherjumper is a white stud.
1970 W. C. Woods Killing Zone 88 He used to be a sad mother jumper.
1977 M. Butler & D. Shyrack Gauntlet 130 All right, you mother-jumpers.
mother-raper n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > goodness and badness > inferiority or baseness > inferior person > [noun] > as abused
warlockOE
swinec1175
beastc1225
wolf's-fista1300
avetrolc1300
congeonc1300
dirtc1300
slimec1315
snipec1325
lurdanc1330
misbegetc1330
sorrowa1350
shrew1362
jordan1377
wirlingc1390
frog?a1400
warianglea1400
wretcha1400
horcop14..
turdc1400
callet1415
lotterela1450
paddock?a1475
souter1478
chuff?a1500
langbain?c1500
cockatrice1508
sow1508
spink1508
wilrone1508
rook?a1513
streaker?a1513
dirt-dauber?1518
marmoset1523
babiona1529
poll-hatcheta1529
bear-wolf1542
misbegotten1546
pig1546
excrement1561
mamzer1562
chuff-cat1563
varlet1566
toada1568
mandrake1568
spider1568
rat1571
bull-beef1573
mole-catcher1573
suppository1573
curtal1578
spider-catcher1579
mongrela1585
roita1585
stickdirta1585
dogfish1589
Poor John1589
dog's facec1590
tar-boxa1592
baboon1592
pot-hunter1592
venom1592
porcupine1594
lick-fingers1595
mouldychaps1595
tripe1595
conundrum1596
fat-guts1598
thornback1599
land-rat1600
midriff1600
stinkardc1600
Tartar1600
tumbril1601
lobster1602
pilcher1602
windfucker?1602
stinker1607
hog rubber1611
shad1612
splay-foot1612
tim1612
whit1612
verdugo1616
renegado1622
fish-facea1625
flea-trapa1625
hound's head1633
mulligrub1633
nightmare1633
toad's-guts1634
bitch-baby1638
shagamuffin1642
shit-breech1648
shitabed1653
snite1653
pissabed1672
bastard1675
swab1687
tar-barrel1695
runt1699
fat-face1740
shit-sack1769
vagabond1842
shick-shack1847
soor1848
b1851
stink-pot1854
molie1871
pig-dog1871
schweinhund1871
wind-sucker1880
fucker1893
cocksucker1894
wart1896
so-and-so1897
swine-hound1899
motherfucker1918
S.O.B.1918
twat1922
mong1926
mucker1929
basket1936
cowson1936
zombie1936
meatball1937
shower1943
chickenshit1945
mugger1945
motherferyer1946
hooer1952
morpion1954
mother1955
mother-raper1959
louser1960
effer1961
salaud1962
gunk1964
scunge1967
1959 C. Himes Crazy Kill v. 27 Turn me loose, you mother-rapers! He's my brother and some mother-raper's going to pay.
1966 C. Himes Heat's On iii. 30 Some mother-raper is shooting at me with water-melon seeds.
1989 R. Miller Profane Men 62 I didn't even read that mother raper.
b.
mother-grabbing adj.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > goodness and badness > state of being accursed > [adjective] > as everyday imprecation
stinking?c1225
misbegetc1325
banned1340
cursefula1382
wariablea1382
cursedc1386
biccheda1400
maledighta1400
vilea1400
accursedc1400
whoresona1450
remauldit?1473
execrable1490
infamous1490
unbicheda1500
jolly1534
bloodyc1540
mangy?1548
pagan1550
damned1563
misbegotten1571
putid1580
desperate1581
excremental1591
inexecrable?1594
sacred1594
putrid1628
sad1664
blasted1682
plagued1728
damnation1757
infernal1764
damn1775
pesky1775
deuced1782
shocking1798
blessed1806
darned1815
dinged1821
anointed1823
goldarn1830
darn1835
cussed1837
blamed1840
unholy1842
verdomde1850
bleeding1858
ghastly1860
goddam1861
blankety1872
blame1876
bastard1877
God-awful1877
dashed1881
sodding1881
bally1885
ungodly1887
blazing1888
dee1889
motherfucking1890
blistering1900
plurry1900
Christly1910
blinking1914
blethering1915
blighted1915
blighting1916
soddish1922
somethinged1922
effing1929
Jesus1929
dagnab1934
bastarding1944
Christless1947
mother-loving1948
mothering1951
pussyclaat1957
mother-grabbing1959
pigging1970
1959 J. C. Holmes Horn 68 Those mother-grabbin' slacks..were full of seeds!
1971 Playboy Mar. 92/3 ‘Out of your mother-grabbing mind,’ Joanne said.
mother-humping adj.
ΚΠ
1961 R. Gover One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding 23 He kin hardly git his mothahhumpin hands roun that wad!
1969 C. Brown Mr. Jiveass 20 Like, it's none of their motherhumping business, right?
1974 C. Loken Come Monday Mornin' 46 He scored..every motherhumpin' point.
1986 J. C. Stinson & J. Carabatsos Heartbreak Ridge 163 Friggin' motherhumpin' Highway.
mother-jumping adj.
ΚΠ
1949 H. Ellson Duke 97 We'd been talking about them mother-jumping Kings.
1964 K. Kesey Sometimes Great Notion 218 And good motherjumpin' riddance.
1969 in E. G. Romm Open Conspiracy (1971) 138 Fucking sonofabitch Fascist mother jumping cops.
1980 E. McDowell To keep our Honor Clean (1981) 156 Sanders, you seem to think you're running this mother-jumping platoon.
mother-raping adj.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > goodness and badness > inferiority or baseness > inferior person > [adjective] > as abused
lousyc1386
greasya1529
mongrela1594
shake rotten1595
strummell-patch1600
thornbackly1605
toad-spotted1608
pissabed1643
shit-breeched1664
shit-breech1675
mole-catching1693
nine-eyed1694
poxya1758
cocksucking1872
bastard1877
motherfucking1890
son-of-a-bitching1902
so-and-so1929
mother-raping1932
zombie1937
chickenshit1940
pissy-arsed1940
bastarding1944
mother-loving1948
mothering1951
1932 E. Halyburton & R. Goll Shoot & be Damned xxvii. 306 When I talked to you mother-raping sewer rats at roll call I thought you were Americans.
1966 C. Himes Heat's On ii. 22 The dirty mother-raping white nigger!
1969 C. Himes Blind Man with Pistol xxi. 226 Mother-raping cocksucking turdeating bastard, are you blind?
c.
mother-murdering adv.
ΚΠ
1956 N. Algren Walk on Wild Side i. 102 I can make it mother-murdering clearer if you want.
1981 T. C. Boyle Water Music (1983) i. 66 Tiggity Sego, mother-murdering mad over the Jarrans' defection, was now advancing on the town to chastise them.
C5.
a. Compounds with simple unmarked genitive.
† mother-father n. [compare Old Frisian mōderfeder, Old Icelandic móður-faðir] Obsolete a maternal grandfather.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > grandparent > [noun] > grandfather
mother-fathereOE
eldfatherOE
grandsirec1300
aiela1325
belsirea1325
grandfather1424
belfatherc1440
goodsire?c1450
fore-grandsire1513
gutcher1523
granfer1564
granddaddy1648
grandpapa1680
grandada1699
grandad1764
grandpa?1785
grandpappy1857
grandpop1860
abuelo1876
dada1888
gramp1890
grampy1904
lolo1934
gramps1935
zayde1946
opa1948
opi1988
eOE tr. Bede Eccl. Hist. (Tanner) iii. xviii. 238 In þæm mynstre heo & Osweo hire fæder & hire modor Eanflæd & hire modorfæder Eadwine..bebyrgde wæron.
† mother-half n. [compare Middle Low German mōderhalf, Middle High German muoterhalp] Obsolete = mother's side n. at Compounds 5b.
ΚΠ
lOE Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Laud) anno 1075 Raulf wæs Bryttisc on his moderhealfe.
c1175 Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 10814 Crist..wass mann o moderr hallf.
c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 6665 (MED) Vor he was in is moder half seint edwardes broþer.
c1430 Acts Parl. Scotl. (1844) I. 40/2 His frendis on the mudyrhalf and..on the fadyrhalf.
a1500 (c1425) Andrew of Wyntoun Oryg. Cron. Scotl. (Nero) v. l. 3007 Off his modyr half a Brettowne He was be kynde of nacione.
mother-milk n. [compare Old Icelandic móður-mjólk] now rare = mother's milk n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > food otherwise characterized > [noun] > mother's milk
mother-milka1425
mother's milk?a1513
breast milk1579
suck1584
a1425 Rule St. Benet (Lansd.) (1902) 11 (MED) My lauerd munde do to my saul als þe barne þat is done fra his modir milke ouir-arlike.
1989 G. Clarke Times like These in Letting in Rumour 49 Strontium 90, The bitter rain that stained our mother-milk.
† mother-side n. [compare Old Frisian mōdersīde] Obsolete = mother's side n. at Compounds 5b.
ΚΠ
a1387 J. Trevisa tr. R. Higden Polychron. (St. John's Cambr.) (1869) II. 145 (MED) He schulde raþer chese hem a kyng of þe moder side þan of þe fader side.
?a1425 Mandeville's Trav. (Egerton) (1889) 120 (MED) Half sisters of þer fader syde wedd þai, bot noȝt of þer moder syde.
1483 W. Caxton tr. J. de Voragine Golden Legende 70/2 This thamar was Absalons suster by the moder syde.
1525 Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Cronycles II. clxxxi. [clxxvii.] 551 He was extracte by his mother syde of a duke of Bretayne.
1622 J. Mabbe tr. M. Alemán Rogue ii. 184 His kinswoman by the mother-side.
1768 J. Boswell Acct. Corsica (ed. 2) ii. 58 Being uncle by the mother-side to Eurysthenes.
† mother-sister n. [compare Middle Low German mōdersüster, Old Icelandic móður-systir] Obsolete a maternal aunt.
ΚΠ
OE West Saxon Gospels: John (Corpus Cambr.) xix. 25 Ða stodon wið þa rode þæs hælendes modor & his modor swustor maria cleophe & maria magdalenisce.
a1325 (c1280) Southern Passion (Pepys 2344) (1927) 1506 (MED) By his rode his moder stod þat com þider þer-to, And Marie Cleophe his moder suster al-so.
a1646 D. Wedderburn Vocabula (1685) 11 Matertera, the mother sister.
b. Compounds with mother's or mothers'.
mother's bairn n. [compare earlier mother bairn n.] Scottish rare a spoilt child.
ΘΚΠ
the world > people > person > child > [noun]
wenchelc890
childeOE
littleOE
littlingOE
hired-childc1275
smalla1300
brolla1325
innocentc1325
chickc1330
congeonc1330
impc1380
faunt1382
young onec1384
scionc1390
weea1400
birdc1405
chickenc1440
enfaunta1475
small boyc1475
whelp1483
burden1490
little one1509
brat?a1513
younkerkin1528
kitling1541
urchin1556
loneling1579
breed1586
budling1587
pledge?1587
ragazzo1591
simplicity1592
bantling1593
tadpole1594
two-year-old1594
bratcheta1600
lambkin1600
younker1601
dandling1611
buda1616
eyas-musketa1616
dovelinga1618
whelplinga1618
puppet1623
butter printa1625
chit1625
piggy1625
ninnyc1626
youngster1633
fairya1635
lap-child1655
chitterling1675
squeaker1676
cherub1680
kid1690
wean1692
kinchin1699
getlingc1700
totum17..
charity-child1723
small girl1734
poult1739
elfin1748
piggy-wiggy1766
piccaninny1774
suck-thumb18..
teeny1802
olive1803
sprout1813
stumpie1820
sexennarian1821
totty1822
toddle1825
toddles1828
poppet1830
brancher1833
toad1836
toddler1837
ankle-biter1840
yarkera1842
twopenny1844
weeny1844
tottykins1849
toddlekins1852
brattock1858
nipper1859
sprat1860
ninepins1862
angelet1868
tenas man1870
tad1877
tacker1885
chavvy1886
joey1887
toddleskin1890
thumb-sucker1891
littlie1893
peewee1894
tyke1894
che-ild1896
kiddo1896
mother's bairn1896
childling1903
kipper1905
pick1905
small1907
God forbid1909
preadolescent1909
subadolescent1914
toto1914
snookums1919
tweenie1919
problem child1920
squirt1924
trottie1924
tiddler1927
subteen1929
perisher1935
poopsie1937
pre-schooler1937
pre-teen1938
pre-teener1940
juvie1941
sprog1944
pikkie1945
subteenager1947
pre-teenager1948
pint-size1954
saucepan lid1960
rug rat1964
smallie1984
bosom-child-
1896 A. Lang Monk of Fife i. 3 Of me, in our country speech, it used to be said that I was ‘a mother's bairn’.
mother's blessing n. slang (now archaic and rare) a painkiller, esp. laudanum.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > healing > medicines or physic > medicines for specific purpose > sedatives, antispasmodics, etc. > [noun] > sedative > for children
soothing syrup1839
mother's blessing1862
1862 B. Hemyng in H. Mayhew London Labour (new ed.) 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.
mother's boy n. a boy or man who is excessively influenced by, or attached to, his mother; a sissy; (also, occasionally) a boy or man who resembles his mother.
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the mind > emotion > fear > cowardice or pusillanimity > [noun] > quality of unmanliness > one who is unmanly > who is excessively influenced by, or attached to, his mother
mother's darling1592
mama's boy1850
mother's boy1862
mummy's boy1927
1721 N. Amhurst Terræ-filius No. 8. ⁋ 11 Where one would stand it out..twenty chose rather to be fondled up, and call'd mother's nown boys at any expence.]
1862 Atlantic Monthly Oct. 403/2 A mere boy, thin, consumptive, hollow-chested: a mother's-boy, Palmer saw, with fair hair and dreamy eyes.
1880 F. 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.
1930 D. H. Lawrence Assorted Articles 197 Oh, women, beware the mother's boy!
1945 ‘L. Lewis’ Birthday Murder ii. 25 Stan's happy as he is being supported by his mother. He's a mother's boy.
1989 Dillons Bks. Aug. 11/4 Claridge..has chosen a mother's-boy villain.
mother's darling n. a favoured or favourite child; (also) = mother's boy n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > fear > cowardice or pusillanimity > [noun] > quality of unmanliness > one who is unmanly > who is excessively influenced by, or attached to, his mother
mother's darling1592
mama's boy1850
mother's boy1862
mummy's boy1927
1592 T. Nashe Pierce Penilesse (Brit. Libr. copy) sig. C3v A young Heyre or Cockney, that is his Mothers Darling.
1681 J. Oldham Some New Pieces never Publisht 80 All the soft weeping Loves about thee moan, At once their Mothers darling, and their own.
1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue at Loll Mother's loll, a favourite child, the mother's darling.
1857 E. Bulwer-Lytton What will he do with It? (Tauchnitz ed.) I. i. i. 5 He looked like a mother's darling—perhaps he was one.
1922 J. Joyce Ulysses i. ii. [Nestor] 32 That knockkneed mother's darling.
1936 ‘J. Tey’ Shilling for Candles iv. 41 Mother's darlings had those eyes; so, sometimes, had womanizers.
1996 Chicago Tribune (Nexis) 31 Mar. c28 In the beginning there was T-ball. Mothers' darlings swatted a rag ball from the top of a rubber pole, then scampered toward first base.
mother's daughter n. a woman; chiefly in every mother's daughter; cf. mother's child n., mother's son n. 1.
ΚΠ
a1625 J. Fletcher Womans Prize ii. ii, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Nnnnn4v/2 Byancha. Get thee where There is no women living, nor no hope There ever shall be. Maria. If a Mothers daughter, That ever heard the name of stubborn husband Find thee, and know thy sinne.
1675 C. Cotton Burlesque upon Burlesque 147 Ladies! thou (Paris) moov'st my laughter, They'r Deities ev'ry Mothers Daughter.
1869 J. H. Browne Great Metropolis 511 Every mother's daughter claimed she wore the identical tresses severed from the head of Marie Antoinette on the eve of her execution.
1998 Bismarck (N. Dakota) Tribune (Nexis) 14 Aug. 1 b Wanted by every mother's daughter, and wild as the wind, ‘his only direction was his own’.
mother's help n. a domestic servant; spec. a person, usually a woman, employed to help look after children.
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society > authority > subjection > service > servant > personal or domestic servant > domestic servant > [noun] > nursemaid > who helps with other duties
mother's help?1881
?1881 Census Eng. & Wales: Instr. Clerks classifying Occupations & Ages (?1885) 30 Mother's Help.
1908 A. 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.
1982 A. Barr & P. York Official Sloane Ranger Handbk. 67/2 After the children go to school, it's the downhill slope to cheaper assistance: mother's helps or The Dreaded Au Pair.
mother's knee n. the lap of one's mother, considered as a place of learning in infancy or as a place of safety and comfort; chiefly in to learn at one's mother's knee.
ΚΠ
1805 R. Southey Madoc in Aztlan v The very mother-language which I learnt, A lisping baby on mother's knees.]
1843 C. F. Hoffman Wild Scenes II. 83 The religion learned at a mother's knee.
1909 ‘O. Henry’ Options 110 The big city is like a mother's knee to many who have strayed far and found the roads rough beneath their uncertain feet.
1992 World (BBC) Apr. 11 Raghubir Singh, an Indian photographer with an international reputation, has had a passion for the Ganga—the River Ganges to non-Indians—since he learned of its sacred qualities at his mother's knee.
2000 Herald (Glasgow) (Electronic ed.) 30 Oct. Hill..is a hands-on cook. It was not an art he learned at his mother's knee.
mother's little helper n. slang a tranquillizer.
ΚΠ
1966 M. Jagger & K. Richard (song, perf. ‘The Rolling Stones’) 1 I hear every mother say ‘Mother needs something today to calm her down.’ And tho' she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill; she goes runnin' for the shelter of her mother's little helper.
1985 Guardian (Nexis) 23 Jan. For many ‘mother's little helper’—tranquillisers—are the only way to blot out the daily suffering.
1993 Daily Tel. 9 Nov. 18 At the outset Valium—‘mother's little helper’—and its stablemates appeared to cause few problems, yet in time distressing withdrawal symptoms were experienced.
2000 Guardian (Nexis) 22 Nov. (Society section) 11 Jenner, now 72 and retired, should therefore perhaps be glowing with pride in his farmhouse near Sheffield, after playing his part in the creation of the drug [sc. Valium], known affectionately as ‘mother's little helper’.
mother's mark n. now rare a birthmark (usually a naevus or haemangioma); cf. naevus maternus n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > blemish > [noun] > spot or mark > birth-mark
birthmark1579
longing mark1644
native note1658
signature1659
naevus1684
mother spot1690
naevus maternus1726
mother's mark1797
mother mark1822
strawberry-mark1847
birth stain1850
port wine mark1853
spider cancer1898
spider-naevus1898
spider1942
spider angioma1956
1797 Encycl. Brit. XII. 615/2 Nævus, a mole on the skin, generally called a mother's mark.
1887 Science 14 Jan. 33/2 The larger part of the body has remained through life covered with a thick coat of strong hair, due..to an enormously large mother's mark.
1949 H. W. C. Vines Green's Man. Pathol. (ed. 17) xv. 392 These growths..give rise to the common cutaneous nævi, the so-called port-wine stains or mother's marks.
mothers' meeting n. (also mother's meeting) (a) a regular meeting of mothers connected with a parish or congregation, for the purpose of receiving instruction and advice, or for social contact; (b) colloquial (in extended use, with humorous overtones) a gathering of people in (prolonged) conversation together.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > social relations > an association, society, or organization > specific societies or organizations > [noun] > specific women's organizations
Ladies' Aid Society1842
mothers' meeting1865
Mothers' Union1888
Women's Institute1897
W.S.P.U.1907
Soroptimist Club1921
rural1925
Rural Institute1925
W.I.Z.O.1925
W.I.1928
W.V.S.1939
Black Sash1955
W.R.V.S.1966
society > society and the community > social relations > association for a common purpose > meeting or assembling for common purpose > [noun] > a meeting > types of
morn-speechOE
court1154
morrow-speech1183
conventicle1382
congregation1389
plenary session1483
journeyc1500
night school1529
assession1560
general meeting1565
family meeting1638
panegyris1647
desk1691
collegea1703
annual general meeting1725
mass meeting1733
panegyre1757
plenum1772
family council1797
coterie1805
Round Table1830
GA1844
indignation meeting1848
protest meeting1852
hui1858
primary1859
Quaker meeting1861
mothers' meeting1865
sit-down1868
town hall1912
jamboree1919
protest rally1921
con1940
face-to-face1960
morning prayers1961
struggle meeting1966
be-in1967
love-in1967
plenary1969
catch-up1972
rencontre1975
schmoozefest1976
1865 C. M. Yonge Clever Woman II. xxx. 312 The mothers' meetings for the soldiers' wives.
1887 ‘E. Lyall’ Knight-errant III. ii. 39 I was just trying to get the Mothers'-Meeting accounts right.
1925 E. Fraser & J. Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 159 Mother's meeting, an occasional name among bluejackets for the captain's address to a ship's company.
1946 D. 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?’
1983 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 27 Nov. NJ20/2 Part of the program's success, Mrs. Calamoneri said, depends on close association with the parents. Informal mothers' meetings are held monthly, and there are parent-teacher conferences every six weeks.
1987 Financial Times (Nexis) 13 Mar. 13 Line managers' reports are countersigned by more senior officers and are discussed at divisional meetings—known as ‘mothers' meetings’—attended by a personnel representative.
mother's pet n. a spoilt or delicate child; (formerly also) Scottish †the youngest child of a family (obsolete).
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the mind > emotion > love > loved one > [noun] > state or condition of being a favourite > favourite or pet
darlingc888
favoura1387
dandilly?a1513
tidling1520
marmoset1523
white son1539
minion1566
favourite1582
white boyc1600
feddle1611
dautie1676
inclination1691
mother's pet1819
fair-haired boy1822
pet1825
white-haired boy1829
petsywetsy1847
blue-eyed boy1919
fave1938
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > child > [noun] > youngest child
nestling1572
reckling1611
swill-pough1611
nestle-tripe1616
nest-cock1674
pin basket1706
poke-shakings1808
mother's pet1819
afterthought1891
1819 Benjamin the Waggoner 37 My little boy—his mother's pet, After sucking is sometimes sick up-On his mother's apron lap.
1824 J. Mactaggart Sc. Gallovidian Encycl. 348 Mithers-pet, the youngest child of a family; the mother's greatest favourite; the Tony Lumpkin of the house.
1830 A. Picken Dominie's Legacy I. 104 He was..as raw looking, overgrown, gawky a youth, as any mother's pet of a student.
1867 D. Livingstone 28 July in Last Jrnls. (1874) I. viii. 222 A poor old woman and child are among the captives, the boy about three years old seems a mother's pet.
a1939 C. Porter Compl. Lyrics (1983) 197 It's time that Mother's pet should start to dress.
1982 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 26 June i. 15/1 The troll actors are outstanding. Niehls Kehlet's Diderik burst out with sudden high jumps to signify a spoiled, irascible mother's pet.
mother's ruin n. slang gin.
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the world > food and drink > drink > intoxicating liquor > distilled drink > gin > [noun]
bottled lightning1713
gin1713
royal bob1722
diddle1725
strike-fire1725
tittery1725
max1728
maxim1739
strip-me-naked1751
eye-water1755
sky blue1755
lightning1781
Jacky1800
ribbon1811
Daffy's elixir1821
sweet-stuff1835
tiger's milk1850
juniper1857
cream of the wilderness1858
satin1864
Twankay1900
panther1931
mother's ruin1933
needle and pin1937
1933 W. Juniper True Drunkard's Delight 229 Perhaps gin is your tipple; then you are for blue-ruin,..heartsease, mother's ruin,..Brian O'Lynn, or rag-water.
1955 P. Jones Birthday Honours i. 10 I have been to a party, darling... What would you like? ‘Mother's Ruin’?
1970 New 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.
1991 M. S. Power Come Executioner (1992) vii. 52 A little gin for me, I think. Mother's ruin.
mother's side n. maternal descent; chiefly in on (also by, †of) the (also his, her, etc.) mother's side.
ΚΠ
c1451 J. Capgrave Life St. Gilbert (1910) 63 (MED) Than was þis man medeled with too blodis, Norman of þe fader side, Englisch of þe moderis side.
1621 M. Wroth Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania 471 By my mothers side I had, and haue many noble, and braue friends as any man can haue.
1724 J. Henley et al. tr. Pliny the Younger Epist. & Panegyrick I. i. xiv. 34 His Grandmother of the Mother's side is Serana Procula of Padua.
1835 T. Mitchell in tr. Aristophanes Acharnians 558 (note) Alcibiades, who, on the mother's side, was sprung from Cœsyra.
1919 Amer. Anthropologist 21 28 The sib..excludes one half of the blood-kindred—the father's side of the family in matronymic, the mother's side in patronymic societies.
1996 S. Deane Reading in Dark (1997) iii. 116 Great-uncle Constantine, on my mother's side, was the sole family heretic.
Mothers' Union n. (also Mother's Union) an Anglican organization for women, founded in 1876, with a particular interest in the quality of family life.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > social relations > an association, society, or organization > specific societies or organizations > [noun] > specific women's organizations
Ladies' Aid Society1842
mothers' meeting1865
Mothers' Union1888
Women's Institute1897
W.S.P.U.1907
Soroptimist Club1921
rural1925
Rural Institute1925
W.I.Z.O.1925
W.I.1928
W.V.S.1939
Black Sash1955
W.R.V.S.1966
1888 M. E. 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.
1972 L. Lamb Pict. Frame xiv. 123 I shall have to run a mothers' union or something.
1997 Church Times 7 Mar. 5/1 The general image of the Mother's Union is of an elderly organisation, so cliquish as to be regarded almost as a secret society.
1999 Rising Nepal 23 Oct. 3/7 A drinking water tank has been constructed at a cost of Rs 45,000 by the local Mothers' Union.
C6.
a. Phrasal combinations with of.
† mother of amethyst n. Obsolete rare = Blue John n. 2.
ΚΠ
1797 Encycl. Brit. XII. 79/1 What we call amethyst root, or mother of amethyst, is but a sparry fluor, of which we have plenty in Derbyshire.
† mother of anchovies n. Obsolete rare the scad, Trachurus trachurus.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > fish > superorder Acanthopterygii (spiny fins) > order Perciformes (perches) > suborder Scombroidei (mackerel) > [noun] > family Carangidae (scads) > member of Trachurus or Caranx (horse mackerel)
scad1602
yellowtaila1622
mother of anchovies1668
hardtail1704
horse-mackerela1705
lizard fish1753
jurel1772
scad mackerel1803
maasbanker1831
caranx1836
saurel1882
runner1888
mackerel scad1890
1668 W. Charleton Onomasticon Zoicon 143 Trachurus..the Mother of Anchovies.
† mother of a thousand n. English regional (Northamptonshire) Obsolete the hen-and-chicken daisy, Bellis perennis var. prolifera.
ΚΠ
1854 A. E. Baker Gloss. Northants. Words II. 34 Mother of a thousand, the hen-and-chicken daisy.
mother of cloves n. = mother clove n. at Compounds 7.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > medicinal and culinary plants > medicinal and culinary plant or part of plant > [noun] > clove-tree or bud(s)
clove1594
mother clove1690
mother of cloves1728
1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Clove Mother of Cloves.
1968 J. W. Purseglove Trop. Crops: Dicotyledons II. 401 The dried fruits, mother of cloves, are sometimes used as an adulterant and a spice.
mother of coal n. = fusain n. 2.
ΚΠ
1867 W. W. Smyth Treat. Coal & Coal-mining 34 Soft mineral charcoal or ‘mother-of-coal’.
1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 48/1 The last, which is known in England as ‘mother of coal’, resembles a soft, dull, black charcoal, containing abundant traces of vegetable fibre.
1958 Jrnl. Ecol. 46 447 Such fragments are often abundant and were once called..‘mother of coal’, but Stopes introduced the French word ‘fusain’ in her work on coal petrology.
† Mother of Commonwealths n. U.S. Obsolete rare the State of Virginia.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > named regions of earth > America > North America > [noun] > United States > specific states > Virginia
Mother of Presidents1827
Mother of States1834
Mother of Commonwealths1879
1879 Congress. Rec. 10 Jan. 413/2 To pour out the vials of his impotent wrath upon the ‘Mother of Commonwealths’.
mother of emeralds n. (also mother of emerald) any of several green varieties of quartz or feldspar.
ΚΠ
1772 G. von Engeström & E. M. da Costa tr. A. F. Cronstedt Ess. Syst. Mineral. (ed. 2) 81 Plasma or mother of the emerald.]
1797 Encycl. Brit. VI. 567/2 Hence the green cochle spar brought from Egypt may have obtained the name of mother of emeralds.
1910 Encycl. Brit. IX. 332/2 ‘Mother of emerald’ is generally a green quartz or perhaps in some cases a green felspar.
† Mother of Floods n. U.S. Obsolete rare the Missouri river.
ΚΠ
1831 J. M. Peck Guide for Emigrants ii. 24 ‘The Mother of Floods’, said to be the aboriginal meaning of Missouri.
1853 C. A. Dana U.S. Illustr. 61 From the savage nations on its banks it [sc. the Missouri] bore the name indifferently of ‘The Smoky Water’, ‘The Mad River’, ‘The Mother of Floods’, each significant of its distinctive features.
mother of millions n. English regional ivy-leaved toadflax, Cymbalaria muralis.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > plants and herbs > climbing or creeping plants > [noun] > mother of thousands
mother of millions1832
Oxford weed1834
mother of thousands1856
Oxford plant1856
wall weed1866
Wandering Sailor(s1881
Wandering Jew1886
1832 A. E. Bray Let. in Descr. Part Devonshire (1836) I. xviii. 318 Mother of millions with its numerous small drooping flowers.
1859 Phytologist 3 147 What in Devon is called Mother-of-millions, viz. Linaria Cymbalaria.
1958 Notes & Queries Nov. 488/2 ‘Mother of thousands’... The name is given to the Ivy-leaved Toad-flax which is also known as ‘Mother of Millions’.
mother of months n. (also mother of the months) poetic (now rare) the moon.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the universe > planet > primary planet > moon > [noun]
moonOE
Diana1398
Hecatec1420
lady of the night1480
luna?1499
Lucina?1504
Phoebe1600
queen of the night?1610
mother of months1613
noctiluca1623
Cynthia1645
Oliver?1747
star-queen1818
Paddy's lantern1834
parish lantern1847
night-sun1855
1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage 13 The silent Moone; which..is Queene of the Night,..Mother of moneths.
a1822 P. B. Shelley Witch of Atlas iv, in Posthumous Poems (1824) 30 Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent Her bow beside the folding-star.
1865 A. C. Swinburne Atalanta in Calydon 3 The mother of months..Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.
1902 H. E. H. King Hours of Passion 32 Among the hollow clouds, Through silver centuries of centuries, Mother of Months, thou hast not dreamt of this.
Mother of Parliaments n. (originally) England; (later) the British Parliament.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > named regions of earth > Europe > British Isles > England > [noun]
Merry Englanda1400
rosec1460
south1641
perfidious Albion1798
perfide Albion1840
Mother of Parliaments1865
Little England1872
Blighty1900
society > authority > rule or government > ruler or governor > deliberative, legislative, or administrative assembly > governing or legislative body of a nation or community > English or British parliament > [noun]
High Courtc1300
parliamentc1390
Westminster1845
Mother of Parliaments1865
1865 J. 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.
1910 Encycl. 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’.
1918 Daily 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.
1926 H. H. Asquith Fifty Years of Parl. II. vii. 228 The phrase had already become proverbial before it was used by Mr. Bright. It is a vulgar error to speak of the English Parliament as the ‘Mother of Parliaments’.
1974 Times 24 Aug. 2/4 France Soir..went on to explain why in the country of the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ social tension has grown.
1990 Country Life 24 May 112/3 Warm feelings about the mother of parliaments had been generated by British support for the Hungarians in their uprising of 1848.
Mother of Presidents n. U.S. (originally) the State of Virginia; (now also) (more fully Modern Mother of Presidents) the State of Ohio.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > named regions of earth > America > North America > [noun] > United States > specific states > Virginia
Mother of Presidents1827
Mother of States1834
Mother of Commonwealths1879
the world > the earth > named regions of earth > America > North America > [noun] > United States > specific states > Ohio
Mother of Presidents1827
O1838
Yankee State1884
1827 A. Sherwood Gazetteer Georgia 98 James Monroe..was born in Va., the mother of Presidents.
1850 Congress. Globe App. 13 May 563/3 Virginia, the mother of Presidents, the Old Dominion.
1897 Chicago Rec. 8 Mar. 4/1 Ohio may claim to take rank with Virginia as a ‘mother of presidents’.
1904 N.Y. Tribune 12 June 8 Virginia concluded not to indorse any candidate. The ‘Mother of Presidents’ is a trifle particular.
1942 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §48/33 Ohio, Buckeye State, Modern Mother of Presidents, Scarlet Carnation State, [etc.].
1998 Roanoke (Virginia) Times & World News (Nexis) 6 Dec. b1 ‘Virginia is the mother of presidents. We'd love to have another one,’ said Trixie Averill, who coordinated Allen's 1993 gubernatorial campaign.
1999 Dayton (Ohio) Daily News (Nexis) 10 Jan. 9 a Before it became known as ‘the Mother of Presidents’, the state of Ohio might well have deserved to be known as the Father of Impeachment.
Mother of States n. U.S. the State of Virginia (also Mother of States and Statesmen); (also, occasionally) the State of Connecticut (rare).
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > named regions of earth > America > North America > [noun] > United States > specific states > Virginia
Mother of Presidents1827
Mother of States1834
Mother of Commonwealths1879
the world > the earth > named regions of earth > America > North America > [noun] > United States > specific states > Connecticut
Mother of States1834
blue law state1839
1834 W. A. Caruthers Kentuckian in N.Y. ii. 195 Virginia has been the mother of states.
1838 Yale Lit. Mag. 3 86 To thee, Mother of States! to thee, good old Connecticut, do our praises most belong.
1855 Southern Literary Messenger 21 675/1 Virginia..[was] hailed as ‘the Mother of States’.
1896 Congress. Rec. 9 June 6342/2 That grand old Commonwealth of Virginia, the mother of States and statesmen.
1915 J. A. Early Heritage of South 99 Enough men to fill the petty offices..could not be found in all the limits of that old commonwealth which has been designated ‘the mother of states and statesmen’.
1994 Roanoke (Virginia) Times & World News (Nexis) 13 Dec. (Extra section) 1 Mother of states, mother of presidents. Virginia has also mothered a good portion of award-winning authors this century.
mother of the bride n. the mother of a bride, esp. of a bride on her wedding day; now also as a modifier.In early use not a fixed phrase. In later use sometimes abbreviated MOTB (also MOB).
ΚΠ
1548 Hall's Vnion: Henry VI f. clxiviij The Marques of Suffolke..espoused the said Ladie, in the churche of sainct Martyns. At whiche mariage were present, the father and mother of the bride.
1896 V. Clavering Sin for Season ix. 86 Anyone to have seen her..would have supposed that she was the mother of the bride, at least; for she ordered everybody about and undertook the whole conduct of affairs generally.
1977 Monitor (McAllen, Texas) 26 June 1 c/2 The mother of the bride wore a pale blue gown..with a fitted long-sleeved jacket.
2009 G. Halliday Mayhem in High Heels xiv. 194 ‘I bought the most beautiful mother-of-the-bride dress,’ Larry gushed. ‘Blue chiffon, with little yellow daisies all over. Just darling!’
† mother of the herrings n. (also mother of herrings) Obsolete rare the allis shad, Alosa alosa.
ΚΠ
1686 F. Willughby & J. Ray De Hist. Piscium ix. ix. §9 Clupea..Angl. A Shad, the Mother of the Herrings.
1776 T. Pennant Brit. Zool. (ed. 4, octavo) III. 348 Shad, or Mother of Herrings. Wil. Icth. 227.
Mother of the House n. the longest serving female member of a legislative assembly; cf. Father of the House n. at father n. Phrases 6.Cf. earlier mother of the House of Commons (see quot. 1920).Not in North American use, and used most often in the context of the British House of Commons.
ΚΠ
1920 Aberdeen Daily Jrnl. 27 Mar. 6/1 Mr Billing..said that the hon. and noble lady [sc. Lady Astor], as the mother of the House of Commons..had told them what she would do with them if they did not agree to what was really the nationalisation of drink.]
1981 Guardian 12 June 2/8 Dame Judith Hart..was the Mother of the House, having entered Parliament along with Mrs Thatcher in 1959.
2005 W. Peters in N.Z. Parl. Deb. 623 18945 The role of mother of the House now passes to one Helen Clark.
2019 Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 25 July 5 Responding to the longest serving female MP, the Mother of the House Harriet Harman, at PMQs, Mrs May said she was one of just 13 female Tory MPs when she was first elected in 1997.
† mother of the wood n. Obsolete rare the plant woodruff, Asperula odorata.Apparently only attested in dictionaries or glossaries.
ΚΠ
1891 New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon at Mother Mother of the wood, the Asperula odorata.
mother of thyme n. (also mother of time) now chiefly North American any of several thymes or related plants, esp. (a) wild thyme, Thymus polytrichus; (b) English regional (Somerset), basil thyme, Acinos arvensis.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > plants and herbs > according to family > labiate plant or plants > [noun] > thyme or wild thyme
brotherwortOE
puliol mountainc1300
thyme1398
pelletera1400
petergrassa1425
serpola1425
running thyme1548
serpille1558
pellamountain1575
creeping thyme1597
mother of thyme1597
serpolet1693
shepherd's thyme1857
mountain puliol1908
1597 J. Gerard Herball ii. 457 Wild Time is called..in English..Mother of Time, and our Ladies Bedstrawe.
1693 S. Dale Pharmacologia 234 Serpullum vulgare,..Mother of Thyme.
1794 W. Hutchinson Hist. Cumberland II. 525 Upon the banks of Eden grows an herb called mother of thyme, said to be medicinal.
1886 J. Britten & R. Holland Dict. Eng. Plant-names 343 Mother of Thyme, Calamintha Acinos, Clairv.—Som[erset].
1976 Hortus Third (L. H. Bailey Hortorium) 1111/2 [Thymus] praecox Opiz... Mother-of-thyme.
† mother-of-wheat n. Scottish Obsolete ivy-leaved speedwell, Veronica hederifolia, a weed of cornfields.
ΚΠ
1853 G. Johnston Terra Lindisfarnensis I. 155 Veronica Hederifolia. Mother-of-Wheat—a name which implies that the plant grows best in a soil fitted for the cultivation of that grain.
1876 Hardwicke's Sci.-gossip 12 39/2 Veronica hederifolia is named by farmers [near Kelso] the ‘mother-of-wheat’.
† mother of yaws n. Obsolete a mama-pian, a mother yaw.
ΚΠ
1891 New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon at Mother Mother of yaws.
b.
mother of all —— n. [in quot. 1990 after Arabic umm al-maʿārik mother of battles (see also note below)] something that is outstanding or exemplary (in magnitude, importance, etc.); anything that is definitive in character, or that is the epitome of its kind; frequently humorous. Cf. the father and mother of a —— at father n. Phrases 8.Popularized as a catchphrase by Saddam Hussein (b. Saddam bin Hussein at-Takriti 1937), President of Iraq from 1979, with reference to the Gulf War (see quot. 1990). Perhaps reinforced in later use by the euphemistic use of mother to mean ‘motherfucker’ (see sense 7 and motherfucker n. 2b), hence the occasionally occurrence of the form mutha in the phrase.
ΚΠ
1878 F. H. Hart Sazerac Lying Club 99 I seed the biggest trout I ever laid eyes on... The mother of all the trouts in Reese River, by thunder.
1892 R. Kipling Lett. of Trav. (1920) 41 The father and mother of all weed-spuds.]
1936 B. Atkinson in N.Y. Times 28 Dec. 13/2 Ilka Chase presides over the proceedings like the mother of all vultures; playing the part as it was written, she leaves no bone unpicked.
1990 tr. S. Hussein in Summary of World Broadcasts Pt. 4: Middle East, Afr. & Latin Amer. (B.B.C.) 22 Sept. ME/0876/A/1 What midgets they are! May they, most of all Bush and his servants Fahd and Husni, be accursed... Everybody must realise that this battle will be the mother of all battles.
1992 Economist 15 Feb. 92/1 America's current economic recession is being billed as the ‘mother of all recessions’: the economy, it is claimed, is mired in its longest recession since the second world war.
1995 New Statesman & Society 17 Mar. 35/1 What writers can suffer from is the notorious writer's block, and I've just been reading the work of Henry Roth, the man famous for enduring the mother of all writer's blocks.
2000 New Yorker 22 May 22/2 A sentimental fantasy by director Gregory Hoblit which wants to be the mother of all father-son movies.
C7.
mother-alkali n. now rare impure or weak soda ash (sodium carbonate) obtained by evaporating the liquid from the mother liquor of soda ash.
ΚΠ
1880 J. Lomas Man. Alkali Trade 244 ‘Weak’ or ‘mother’ alkali is a fine powdery substance.
1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 682/2 The mother-liquor, drained from the soda-crystals, on boiling down to dryness yields a very white, but low-strength soda-ash, as the soluble impurities of the original soda-ash are nearly all collected here; it is called ‘mother-alkali’.
mother-and-babe adj. = mother-in-babe adj.
ΚΠ
1928 G. 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!
Mother Bell n. see Bell n.5
mother-bomb n. Military rare a canister containing a cluster of explosive devices.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > military equipment > weapon > explosive device > [noun] > bomb > fragmentation
fragmentation bomb1918
grass cutter1925
parafrag bomb1944
scatter bomb1961
lazy dog1965
cluster bomb1967
pellet bomb1967
mother-bomb1971
nail bomb1971
1971 New Scientist 21 Jan. 135/2 Shrapnel grenades..are dropped individually, or in clusters from canisters (‘mother-bombs’).
† mother-borough n. [compare Old High German muoterburg] Obsolete rare the chief town or city of a country; = mother city n. 2a.
ΘΚΠ
society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > district in relation to human occupation > town as opposed to country > town or city > [noun] > chief town or capital city
headeOE
mother-boroughc1225
master-borougha1325
sedea1387
chief1393
master-townc1400
metropolitan?a1439
capital city1439
master citya1450
stade1481
metropolea1500
capital1525
seatc1540
head-place1546
chamber1555
mother city1570
metropolis1584
metropolite1591
madam-town1593
capital town1601
seat-town1601
metropolie1633
megapolis1638
county seat1803
Queen City1807
metrop1888
Metroland1951
c1225 (?c1200) St. Katherine (1973) 46 Þe moderburh of Alixandres riche.
mother cell n. Biology a cell that is undergoing or that has undergone cell division (esp. meiosis); a cell that is regarded as a precursor (of a particular structure, tissue, etc.).
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > biology > biological processes > procreation or reproduction > reproductive substances or cells > [noun] > parent cell
parent cella1836
mother cell1840
pericytula1876
gonocyte1900
gonotocont1909
intermitotic1942
1840 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 130 552 (note) The process in question..consists first, in the foundations of young cells arising apparently in no other way than by divisions of the nucleus of a mother-cell.
1875 A. W. Bennett & W. T. T. Dyer tr. J. von Sachs Text-bk. Bot. 440 The pollen-grains, when free from their mother-cells, are unicellular and spherical.
1932 C. D. Darlington Rec. Adv. in Cytol. i. 5 In a ‘mother-cell’ two nuclear divisions follow one another rapidly while the chromosomes only divide once.
1992 M. Ingrouille Diversity & Evol. Land Plants 48 They give rise to a group of central mother cells from which regular files of small vacuolated cells arise, called rib meristem.
mother clove n. the fruit of the clove tree, Syzygium aromaticum, resembling a clove in appearance when dried, but less aromatic.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > medicinal and culinary plants > medicinal and culinary plant or part of plant > [noun] > clove-tree or bud(s)
clove1594
mother clove1690
mother of cloves1728
1690 S. Blankaart Lexicon Novum Medicum 41 Anthophylli... Angl. Mother cloves.
1693 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 17 952 I chose some of the largest Cloves I could find, called Mother-Cloves.
1861 R. Bentley Man. Bot. ii. iii. 553 The dried unripe fruits are called mother cloves; they are used in China and other countries as a spice.
1929 H. A. A. Nicholls & J. H. Holland Text-bk. Trop. Agric. (ed. 2) viii. 279 The ovaries covered with the lower part of the calyx then swell and form the fruit, which is a large ovoid purple berry, containing one or two seeds, and known as the ‘mother clove’.
1959 Chambers's Encycl. III. 667/1 If pollination and fertilization take place, the ovary [of the clove tree] develops into a juicy, purple berry called the ‘mother clove’.
mother coal n. = fusain n. 2.
ΚΠ
1855 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 145 150 We have not hitherto found any tissue at all resembling that which occurs occasionally abundantly in bituminous coal, and is known as mineral charcoal and mother-coal.
1873 J. W. Dawson Story Earth & Man vi. 118 A dusty fibrous substance, like charcoal, called ‘mother-coal’ by miners.
1900 Western Mail 22 Mar. He would have discarded a piece of coal which was shown to him as being unmarketable, because a thin line of what was termed ‘mother coal’ ran through it.
1975 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. 1973 xlix. 43 Mother coal, a powdery charcoal substance found layered in the coal.
mother complex n. Psychoanalysis a complex (complex n. 3) of emotions aroused in a young boy by an unconscious sexual desire for his mother; cf. Oedipus complex n. at Oedipus n. Compounds 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > psychology > theory of psychoanalysis > libido > obsession > [noun] > with mother
mother complex1919
mother fixation1921
1919 M. K. Bradby Psycho-anal. 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.
1936 C. Day Lewis Friendly Tree i. vi. 87 He sucks a pipe constantly. The mother-complex. Infantilism.
1960 R. F. C. Hull tr. C. G. Jung Struct. & Dynamics of Psyche in Coll. Wks. (1966) VIII. v. 369 Analysis shows an infantile longing for the mother, a so-called mother complex.
1992 C. P. Estés Women who run with Wolves vi. 174 In Jungian psychology, this entire tangle is called the mother complex.
mother cult n. Cultural Anthropology the worship of a mother goddess.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > worship > kinds of worship > [noun] > of a deity > of a mother-goddess
mother cult1909
1909 Westm. Gaz. 2 Feb. 5/1 From the trend of recent writings in Hindu literature it is suggested that the Mother cult has been revived.
1924 L. A. Waddell Phoenician Origin Britons 102 The chain of Van names.., seems evidenced by the following... All in the traditional area of the Matriarchic Mother-cult.
1998 Augusta (Georgia) Chron. (Nexis) 10 May a5 In the fifth century, devotion to the Virgin Mary emerged as a new Mother cult, with this Mother of God firmly replacing Cybele, the Mother of the Gods.
mother-descent n. rare descent on or through the mother's side.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > lineage or descent > [noun] > a line of descent > side > female line or side
mother-descent1642
distaff1644
spindle-side1851
spindle1877
distaff side1890
matrilineage1949
matriline1957
1642 T. Fuller Holy State iv. xv. 313 Her royall birth by her Fathers side doth comparatively make her Mother-descent seem low.
1915 Jrnl. Royal Anthropol. Inst. 131 He believed there was no division into exogamous clans with mother-descent.
mother dough n. U.S. a portion of fermented dough set aside while making sourdough bread, used for starting a new batch; a bread starter.
ΚΠ
1954 S. K. Hardy New Land needs Singing v. 48 Luella had made up a ‘sponge’ of mother dough into which she mixed sifted flour at the proper time to stiffen it up.
1987 Americana Sept. 42/1 When the Boudin bakers arrive in the early morning hours, they..mix globs of the mother dough with flour, salt, and water in large mechanized mixers.
2001 Sunday Tel. (Nexis) 12 Aug. 4 Our friends had brought the mother dough for the self-fermenting San Franciscan sourdough bread that they make at home, which sat sullenly in the kitchen waiting to be fed.
2016 R. FitzRoy tr. R. Renneberg et al. Biotechnol. for Beginners (ed. 2) i. 21/3 Each bakery's mother dough, also known as the mother ‘sponge’, has been in continuous use since the respective bakery's founding, carefully maintained and replenished by generations of bakers.
Mother English n. the English language as a mother tongue or first language, spec. when viewed positively as a model of expression, esp. in terms of plainness and straightforwardness, or (later) with reference to Standard English as a model of correctness.
ΚΠ
1816 W. Scott Old Mortality Peroration, in Tales of My Landlord 1st Ser. IV. 346 O, ignorance! as if the vernacular article of our mother English were capable of declension!
a1834 S. T. Coleridge Coll. Wks. (1998) XII. 717 Ludicrous as these introductory Scraps of French appear, so instantly followed by good nervous mother-english.
1873 Harper's Mag. Sept. 613/1 Scholars are more able to quote Demosthenes and Cicero than to make a stirring speech in their own mother English.
1910 W. de la Mare Three Mulla-mulgars 107 That's mother-English, that is! Now we's beginning to unnerstand one another.
1960 J. Barth Sot-weed Factor i. i. 13 Ebenezer Cooke..who, like his friends-in-folly..had found the sound of Mother English more fun to game with than her sense to labor over.
1999 Herald (Glasgow) (Electronic ed.) 13 Jan. The purism of Mother English breeds a corresponding Puritanism among the natives kicking against her clutches. If Soyinka was patronised in Cambridge, he has been vilified in Lagos for corrupting Yoruba culture by writing in English in the first place.
mother figure n. a person or thing endowed with some of the attributes of a mother, esp. an older woman who is seen as a source of nurture, support, etc.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > mother figure
mother figure1932
mum figure1959
attachment figure1964
1932 Man 32 285/2 The first origin of the Mother-figure goes back at least as far as the Aurignacian age.
1945 M. Klein Contrib. Psycho-anal. (1948) 346 The early splitting of the mother figure into a good and bad ‘breast mother’ as a way of dealing with ambivalence had been very marked.
1971 Daily Tel. 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.
1997 P. Cornwell Unnatural Exposure v. 38 Lucy worships you. You're the only decent mother figure she's ever had.
mother-fit n. now historical = sense 9; usually in plural.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > mental health > mental illness > degree or type of mental illness > [noun] > psychoneurosis > hysteria
mother?c1450
suffocation of the womb, matrix, motherc1550
strangulation of the matrix or womb1601
hysterica passio1603
suffocation (also rising, fit) of the mother1615
hysteric passion1655
tarantism1656
mother-fit1657
rising of the matrix1660
hysteria1757
tarantulism1774
pithiatism1910
mothersickness1993
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders of internal organs > convulsive or paralytic disorders > [noun] > hysteria > fit of
suffocation (also rising, fit) of the mother1615
mother-fit1657
hysterics1664
hystericals1797
conniption1833
1657 P. Henry Diaries & Lett. (1882) 65 Mother-fits.
1681 N. Grew Musæum Regalis Societatis i. i. 4 A Thong hereof ty'd about the middle, is of good use..especially against Mother-Fits.
1939 M. Spring Rice Working-class Wives viii. 204 To brew..‘simples’ against ‘mother-fits’.
1942 Biometrika 32 205 He remembered that some women troubled with the Mother fits did complain of a choking in their throats.
mother-fixated adj. fixated on one's mother, suffering from a mother fixation.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > psychology > theory of psychoanalysis > libido > obsession > [adjective] > obsessed with > mother
mother-fixated1943
1943 Sociometry 6 358 She has one mother-fixated and mother-smothered daughter who is now in her thirties and is staging a mild and much-belated postadolescent rebellion.
1977 Gay News 7 Apr. 21/2 The power of the Jewish mother in the home has led some people to wonder if all Jewish men are not mother-fixated (and consequently gay!).
2000 Daily Tel. (Electronic ed.) 11 Sept. Alan Cox is in wonderfully creepy form as the playboy, Charles Bruno, a mother-fixated psychopathic lush who hates his father.
mother fixation n. Psychoanalysis a fixation (fixation n. 3b) on one's mother.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > psychology > theory of psychoanalysis > libido > obsession > [noun] > with mother
mother complex1919
mother fixation1921
1921 Internat. Jrnl. Psycho-anal. 2 55 Jesus is no longer satisfied to make Joseph his ideal (a hard task for a boy with a strong Mother-fixation of love).
1954 Sc. Jrnl. Theol. 7 393 Rationalism has handed the problem [of worship] over to the psychologist to explain in terms of repressions, mother-fixations, infantile-regressions and the like.
1982 Listener 23 Dec. 56/1 Grainger's mother-fixation is well known.
1992 L. S. Marcus Margaret Wise Brown 28 With a nod to popular concern over the dreaded ‘mother fixation’, she suggested that children might actually be better served by mothers with other interests to occupy them.
mothergate n. [ < mother n.1 + gate n.2] Coal Mining English regional (north-eastern) the main passage in a series of mine workings, through which coal is conveyed to the surface.
ΚΠ
1839 Penny Cycl. XV. 247 When the bord or ‘mother-gate’ has proceeded some distance on both sides of the pit [etc.].
1848 Eng. & Foreign Mining Gloss. (Newcastle Terms) 124 Mothergate, the bord along which the coals are trammed from a district of workings.
1942 Penguin New Writing 12 95 At last they came to the end of the long, low mothergate which follows the coal-face.
Mother General n. Christian Church a female head of a religious order (cf. sense 3a).
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > church government > monasticism > religious superior > [noun] > female
superioress1756
Superioress General1756
Mother General1865
Sister Superior1991
1865 Catholic World June 311 I have begged our mother-general to allow the 200 francs which you were so good as to send us for postage, to be devoted to the first expenses of the chapel.
1924 B. Camm (title) Mother Mary of St Peter. Foundress and first mother-general of the nuns of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre (Tyburn).
1991 M. Binchy Circle of Friends (BNC) 38 She had certainly been up every road as far as the Order was concerned. She had written to the Mother General.
2000 Herald (Glasgow) (Electronic ed.) 20 Sept. The Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth was founded in London in 1865 by Cardinal Wiseman and Mother St Basil, the first Mother General of the Congregation.
mother hen n. figurative a person, organization, etc., that takes care of others, esp. in an overprotective manner.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > safety > protection or defence > care, protection, or charge > [noun] > one who looks after
nurse?a1425
minder1692
tenter1828
mother hen1873
nursemaid1943
citizen advocate1971
1873 Littell's Living Age 1 Mar. 533/2 Dürten will go with you; she is always ready to be mother-hen to the little chicken.
1952 N.Y. Times 23 Aug. 20/2 The General Tire and Rubber Company announced today the formation of a Government-approved ‘mother hen’ holding company to help smaller concerns get war orders.
1977 Time 19 Dec. 9/2 She also served as mother hen for Portuguese contingents in their travels to international beauty contests.
2000 Mirror (Electronic ed.) 14 Aug. Titus Bramble gave a titanic show for Ipswich in their 1-1 draw with Fiorentina at Portman Road and then paid tribute to his ‘mother hen’ John Scales, the 34-year-old ex-England defender.
mother house n. the founding house of a religious order.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > church government > monasticism > [noun] > religious foundation > principal
mother house1661
1661 Manifest Gen. Chapter Catholick Eng. Clergy 3 Dr. Leyburn does calumniate us, as being Enemies to our Mother-house, the Colledge of Doway.
a1773 A. 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.
1840 K. H. Digby Mores Catholici x. i. 9 Cisteaux, the mother house of the order, [was] founded..in 1098... La Ferté was the first branch house.
1932 C. P. Curran in F. J. Sheed Irish Way 269 In this spirit she worked for ten years in the Mother-house and novitiate.
1999 M. Greenwood et al. Ireland: Rough Guide ii. xvi. 559 The Cistercian order, of which Mellifont was the mother house in Ireland.
† mother-idea n. [after French idée mère (1745)] Obsolete an idea regarded as giving rise to or being fundamental to something.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of ideation > idea, notion, or concept > [noun] > fundamental
mother-idea1821
idée mère1841
mother-thought1861
seed thought1863
1821 P. S. Du Ponceau Let. in M. O. Pickering Life John Pickering (1887) 313 This is a mother-idea that will create a new title in philological literature.
1858 O. W. Holmes Autocrat of Breakfast-table x. 270 There is a mother-idea in each particular kind of tree, which, if well marked, is probably embodied in the poetry of every language.
1873 Appletons' Jrnl. Aug. 237/2 I can fancy myself in the caverns where the archetypical ideas—the mother ideas, as Goethe calls them—wove the web of life.
mother image n. an ideal or archetypal mother figure; (Psychoanalysis) = mother imago n.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > mother image or symbol
mother-symbol1852
mother imago1916
mother image1923
1923 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 29 250 He..fails, because of the mother-image, to establish satisfactory relations with the other sex.
1941 L. MacNeice Poetry of 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.
1973 J. Singer Boundaries of Soul iv. 91 The Mother image appeared under strange circumstances to my analysand Margaret.
1996 A. Theroux Secondary Colors 175 A middle-aged male gay twanker walking arm-in-arm with another mother image.
mother imago n. Psychoanalysis the mental or realized image of an idealized or archetypal mother.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > mother image or symbol
mother-symbol1852
mother imago1916
mother image1923
the mind > mental capacity > psychology > theory of psychoanalysis > libido > obsession > [noun] > influential image > of parent > of mother
mother imago1916
1916 B. M. Hinkle tr. C. G. Jung Psychol. of Unconscious v. 250 That amount of libido which unconsciously is fastened to the mother-imago.
1956 R. F. C. Hull tr. C. G. Jung 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.
1991 Paragraph July 162 The idealization of the father is more correctly seen as the result of the splitting of the mother imago into one good and one bad part, where the image of the ‘good mother’ is projected on to the father, and the mother is cast as the repository for all that is evil.
mother-in-babe adj. designating a wooden bobbin with a hollow shank which contains another smaller bobbin.
ΘΚΠ
the world > textiles and clothing > textiles > textile manufacture > manufacture of thread or yarn > [noun] > winding > winding on spool or bobbin > spool or bobbin > specific
tavell1523
pirn1829
spool1852
token1878
mother-in-babe1919
1919 T. Wright Romance of Lace Pillow xiii. 126 Mother-in-Babe Bobbins, in the hollowed shank of which a tiny wooden bobbin rattles.
1969 E. 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.
1994 Lace 76 40/2 David Springett also laid to rest the myth that mother-in-babe bobbins were made by boiling the bone to soften it so that the ‘babe’ could be slid inside.
mother kingdom n. now historical a kingdom in relation to its colonies or dependencies; (also, occasionally) an original or earlier kingdom from which another develops.
ΚΠ
1690 J. Child Disc. Trade x. 178 Where there is little Manufacturing,..the profit of Plantations, viz. the greatest part thereof will not redound to the Mother-Kingdom.
1726 J. Swift Gulliver II. iv. xii. 348 Their Caution in stocking their Provinces with People of sober Lives and Conversations from this the Mother Kingdom.
1897 Atlantic Monthly Apr. 529/2 It had its dawn more than three hundred years ago in the struggle of the little mother kingdom with the colossal power of Spain.
1998 An Scathan (Nexis) 30 Apr. s6 Before the end of the 6th century, about A.D. 595, the colony achieved complete independence from the Irish mother kingdom.
mother liquid n. = mother liquor n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > chemistry > crystallography (general) > crystallization > [noun] > the liquid left after
mother1611
mother-water1651
mother liquor?1698
mother liquid1830
1830 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 120 57 The solution obtained is to be precipitated by a strong solution of muriate of ammonia; a bright yellow pulverulent substance will fall, and a mother liquid..remain.
1848 G. Fownes Man. Elem. Chem. (ed. 2) iii. 544 The mother-liquid from flesh from which the kreatine has been deposited contains, among other things, a new acid, the inosinic, the aqueous solution of which refuses to crystallize.
1936 Amer. Home Feb. 86/4 When the raw sugar is crystallized out of the sugar cane juice, a mother liquid is left. Concentrated and clarified, this is molasses, of which there are different grades according to the amount of sugar taken out.
1995 Molecular & Cellular Biochem. 153 25 The stability towards decomposition in solid state, mother-liquid and pure water solutions.
mother liquor n. the liquid remaining after a dissolved substance has crystallized out.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > chemistry > crystallography (general) > crystallization > [noun] > the liquid left after
mother1611
mother-water1651
mother liquor?1698
mother liquid1830
?1698 in D. R. Hainsworth Corr. J. Lowther (1983) 700 The refining liquer is caled the mother liquer.
1783 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 73 17 [They] afford no crystals, but only a magma or mother liquor.
1865–72 H. Watts Dict. Chem. III. 316 The mother-liquor of the iridium-salt.
1890 W. de W. Abney Photogr. (ed. 6) 73 The mother liquor may be employed for intensifying.
1952 H. Diehl & G. F. Smith Quantitative Anal. ii. 33 Precipitates that occlude the mother liquor seriously should be dissolved.
1994 Jrnl. Molecular Biol. 236 990 Electron micrographs of mechanically disintegrated crystals show that the inside of the protein cluster is filled with the mother liquor.
mother-love n. †(a) love for one's mother (obsolete); (b) maternal love.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > love > [noun] > love between kinsmen > motherly love or affection
mother-loveOE
motherheada1393
motherhood1593
mother1725
OE Vercelli Homilies (1992) i. 36 ‘Þis is þin modor, & þu hie þe for modor hafa.’ & he þa, Iohanne[s], swa dyde, & he hie þa in moderlufan hæfde.
1683 F. Willis et al. tr. Anacreon done into Eng. 66 All [the young ones] gape for Food, and All The Mother Love with chirpings call.
1843 T. Westwood Beads from Rosary 27 A love to equal that sweet mother-love of thine.
1857 T. J. Powis Uriel xi. 106 All things rest,..Lulled in Mary's mother-love.
1915 C. P. Gilman Herland in Forerunner May 128/1 The power of mother-love, that maternal instinct we so highly laud, was theirs of course, raised to its highest power.
1989 Independent 9 May 14 (heading) Victims of the perverse side of motherlove.
mother-lye n. now historical the mother liquor of an alkali (also figurative).
ΚΠ
1756 F. Home Exper. Bleaching 25 Out of their first or mother lye, the second..is made in this manner.
1800 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 3 82 These mother-leys still contain a certain quantity of caustic soda.
c1865 J. Wylde Circle of Sci. I. 331/2 The fluid from which crystals are precipitated is called mother-lye.
1921 Sci. Monthly Aug. 111 The primal impulse by which worlds evolved out of chaos, nebulae or any other mother-lye.
mother-maid n. [compare Middle Dutch moedermaget, Middle High German muotermaget] now rare (poetic in later use) the Virgin Mary.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > deity > Christian God > Mary > [noun]
ladyOE
queenOE
MaryOE
St MaryOE
starOE
Our LadylOE
lemana1225
maidena1225
maid Marya1225
heaven queenc1225
mothera1275
maiden Maryc1300
Star of the Seac1300
advocatrixc1390
mother-maidc1390
flower, gem, etc., of virginitya1393
the Virgina1393
mediatricea1400
paramoura1400
salver14..
advocatrice?a1430
Mother of God?a1430
way of indulgence?a1430
advocatessc1450
mother-maidenc1450
rose of Jerichoa1456
mediatrixc1475
viergec1475
addresseressa1492
fleur-de-lis?a1513
rosine?a1513
salvatrice?a1513
saviouress1563
mediatressa1602
advocatress1616
Christotokos1625
Deipara1664
V.M.1670
Madonnaa1684
the Virgin Mother1720
Panagia1776
Mater Dolorosa1800
B.V.M.1838
dispensatrixa1864
Theotokos1874
dispensatress1896
c1390 G. Chaucer Prioress's Tale 1657 O moder mayde! O mayde moder free!
1605 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Triumph of Faith in tr. Deuine Weekes & Wks. 569 That Mother-Maide, Who Sier-les bore her Sire, yet euer-Maid.
1612 J. Donne Second Anniuersarie 32 in First Anniuersarie Where thou shalt see the blessed Mother-maid.
1835 W. Wordsworth Russ. Fugitive iii. v, in Yarrow Revisited 135 The Mother-maid whose countenance bright With love abridged the day.
1840 F. H. C. Doyle Misc. Verses 166 They fall together on their knees, With one short thrilling prayer for aid, To the good saints..And the blest mother-maid.
1911 E. Nesbit Ballads & Verses Spiritual Life 61 The Christ, the Mother-Maid, The incense of the hearts that praised and prayed.
mother-maiden n. now rare (poetic in later use) = mother-maid n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > deity > Christian God > Mary > [noun]
ladyOE
queenOE
MaryOE
St MaryOE
starOE
Our LadylOE
lemana1225
maidena1225
maid Marya1225
heaven queenc1225
mothera1275
maiden Maryc1300
Star of the Seac1300
advocatrixc1390
mother-maidc1390
flower, gem, etc., of virginitya1393
the Virgina1393
mediatricea1400
paramoura1400
salver14..
advocatrice?a1430
Mother of God?a1430
way of indulgence?a1430
advocatessc1450
mother-maidenc1450
rose of Jerichoa1456
mediatrixc1475
viergec1475
addresseressa1492
fleur-de-lis?a1513
rosine?a1513
salvatrice?a1513
saviouress1563
mediatressa1602
advocatress1616
Christotokos1625
Deipara1664
V.M.1670
Madonnaa1684
the Virgin Mother1720
Panagia1776
Mater Dolorosa1800
B.V.M.1838
dispensatrixa1864
Theotokos1874
dispensatress1896
c1450 (?c1425) St. Mary of Oignies ii. ii, in Anglia (1885) 8 173 (MED) He [sc. Christ] schewed hym..in Criste-masse lyke a childe soukynge þe pappes of þe moder-mayden.
1869 ‘G. Eliot’ Agatha in Atlantic Monthly Aug. 207 Holy Gabriel, lily-laden, Bless the aged mother-maiden.
1875 S. Evans In Studio 124 Mother-Maiden! The Hope of the Woman! The Woman through whom was the Word!
1911 E. Nesbit Ballads & Verses of Spiritual Life 85 Have pity on me—Mother-maiden sweet.
mother mark n. now rare a birthmark (cf. mother's mark n. at Compounds 5b).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > blemish > [noun] > spot or mark > birth-mark
birthmark1579
longing mark1644
native note1658
signature1659
naevus1684
mother spot1690
naevus maternus1726
mother's mark1797
mother mark1822
strawberry-mark1847
birth stain1850
port wine mark1853
spider cancer1898
spider-naevus1898
spider1942
spider angioma1956
1822 J. M. Good Study Med. IV. 682 These [moles] differ essentially from nævi or genuine mother-marks.
1904 Special Rep. Dis. Cattle (U.S. Dept. Agric. Bureau Animal Industry) 265 The angiomas are tumors composed mainly of blood vessels or blood spaces and are observed on the skin of man, where they are called ‘birthmarks’ or ‘mother marks’.
mother-metal n. [after mother liquor] Metallurgy rare a solid mass of metals or alloy left after some of a metal has separated out by crystallization.
ΚΠ
1902 Encycl. Brit. XXIX. 573/2 By which time so much iron has separated out that the remaining mother-metal has reached the composition of hardenite.
Mother Midnight n. slang (now historical) (a name for) a midwife; (also, occasionally) a bawd.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > healing > healer > one skilled in obstetrics or midwifery > [noun]
midwifec1300
childwifea1387
midwomana1400
Lucinac1405
matron?a1425
grace-wifec1600
Mother Midnight1602
headswoman1615
handwoman1637
sage woman1672
howdie1725
accoucheur1727
granny1738
obstetrix1773
accoucheuse1795
dukun1817
fingersmith1819
wise woman1821
obstetrician1826
obstetrist1873
tocologist1902
birth attendant1910
S.C.M.1935
monitrice1969
1602 F. Herring tr. J. Oberndorf Anatomyes True Physition 11 One while hee playeth the Apothecarie, other whiles serueth in stead of Mother Midnight.
1636 W. Sampson Vow Breaker sig. H2 Well drunck Mother mid-night.
1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew Mother Midnight, a Midwife (often a Bawd).
1722 D. Defoe Moll Flanders 196 I really did not understand her, but my Mother Midnight began very seriously to explain what she meant.
1752 W. Kenrick Parodi-tragi-comical Satire i. 5 Here a poor Birth-strangled Babe, Ditch-deliver'd by a Drab; Child of Poverty and Spleen, Mother Midnight's Magazine.
1786 ‘A. Pasquin’ Royal Academicians 14 Mother Midnight, have you washed the large table-cloth?
1988 18th-cent. Stud. 22 265 A fully realized Mother Midnight, this bawd..personifies the fate that attends the reproductive body.
mother mould n. Sculpture a rigid mould which holds casting material.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > plastic art > modelling > [noun] > casting methods > mould
mould1530
intaglio1825
print1847
piece-mould1867
mother mould1898
negative1911
waste mould1929
1898 C. R. Ashbee tr. B. Cellini Treat. Goldsmithing & Sculpt. 116 Put them into the cavities..in the mould... Or ‘mother mould’ as the sculptors would call it.
1947 J. C. Rich Materials & Methods Sculpt. v. 100 A heavily bodied plaster mix can be applied over the agar impression to form a mother mold or casing.
1969 R. 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.
1985 San Diego Union-Tribune (Nexis) 15 Sept. f18 The latex is covered with a reinforcing material to make a ‘mother mold’.
mother nation n. (a) a nation in relation to its colonies or dependencies; a nation from which others evolved; (b) a nation in which something originated.
ΚΠ
1622 F. Bacon Advt. Holy Warre in Wks. (1879) I. 529/1 There are other bands of society, and implicit confederations. That of colonies, or transmigrants, towards their mother nation.
1757 M. Postlethwayt Great Britain's True Syst. x. 267 To the Advantage of..the general Prosperity of their Colonies, in Conjunction with that of their Mother-nation.
1897 A. Drucker tr. R. J. von Ihering Evol. Aryan 20 The endeavour of Indologians to attribute the highest possible degree of civilization to the mother-nation.
1942 Ethics 52 142 Outlying territories that have come under the control of the mother-nation.
2001 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 12 Apr. 42 The memories of Ecuador's extraordinary victory over the mother nation of tennis on their most hallowed territory, Wimbledon, last July, came flooding back.
Mother Nature n. see sense 4f.
† mother-pian n. Obsolete rare a mother yaw.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > suppuration > [noun] > a suppuration > abscess > ulcer > of yaws
master yaw1744
yaw1744
tubboe1769
mamma-yaw1801
mama-pian1822
mother yaw1822
mother-pian1898
1898 P. Manson Trop. Dis. xxvii. 428 (note) A large persistent yaw is sometimes known as the ‘mother’, ‘grandmother’ or ‘mama-pian’.
mother plane n. originally U.S. an aircraft which launches, controls, or tends another aircraft (in quot. 1999 with reference to a spacecraft; cf. mother ship n.2).
ΘΚΠ
society > travel > air or space travel > a means of conveyance through the air > [noun] > an aircraft or spacecraft > from which another is controlled or launched
mother ship1890
mother plane1936
1936 Sun (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.
1945 Time 19 Nov. 52/2 Everything it sees is projected by radio on a screen in the mother plane.
1977 C. Thomas Firefox (1978) vi. 159 He will not refuel in the air—we would know if some mother-plane were waiting for him over neutral or hostile sky.
1999 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 10 June 52/4 A wheel-shaped spaceship..called the Mother Plane..carrying fifteen hundred smaller ships.
mother plant n. a plant that is the source of seed (or ovules), seedlings, or vegetative propagules.
ΘΚΠ
the world > plants > by family relationships > [noun] > parent plant
mother plant1656
mother1691
1656 H. More Antidote Atheism App. xi. 364 Now this regular conformation of the seed came from the uniforme motion of particles in the Mother-plant.
1707 J. Mortimer Whole Art Husbandry (1721) II. 48 I think those raised by Layers from a Mother-plant make the best Trees.
1868 C. Darwin Variation Animals & Plants II. xxvii. 365 Foreign pollen occasionally affects the mother-plant in a direct manner.
1928 Jrnl. Heredity 19 263/1 This newly discovered action of pollen on the ovarial tissues of the mother plant.
1990 Gardening from Which? July 238/4 Peg down runners..into 15 cm (6 in) pots sunk into the ground around the mother plants.
† mother queller n. Obsolete rare a matricide.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > death > killing > killer for specific reason or type of person > [noun] > of relatives > of parent > of mother
mother queller1440
mother-slayer?c1475
matricide1632
Promptorium Parvulorum (Harl. 221) 341 Modyr qwellare,..matricida.
† mother quelling n. Obsolete rare matricide.
ΚΠ
Promptorium Parvulorum (Harl. 221) 341 Modur qwellynge, matricidium.
mother root n. Botany a primary or main root, from which lateral roots grow.
ΚΠ
1615 H. Peacham Prince Henrie Reuived sig. C3 An Aprill Impe that late did shoot, From the warme bosome of its Mother root.
1664 J. Evelyn Sylva 3 Dropp'd, and disseminated amongst the..perplexities of the mother roots.
1727 S. J. Vineyard 122 As being nourished from its own mother-Root.
1882 S. H. Vines tr. J. von Sachs Text-bk. Bot. (ed. 2) 166 The origin of lateral roots in a mother-root is always on the outside of its axial fibrovascular or plerome-cylinder.
1938 Bot. Gaz. 99 504 The pericycle of the mother root gave rise to the stele of the lateral root.
1993 Plant & Soil 153 126/1 Each new primordium will either stay at a very early stage..or continue its development and transform into a young rootlet which will bore through the mother-root epidermis.
mother skein n. Cell Biology now disused the prophase configuration of chromosomes.
ΚΠ
1889 Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. 30 171 We call this stage, with Flemming, the ‘Knäuel-Stadium’ (skein stage), or ‘spirem’, or ‘mother-skein’.
1906 Bot. Gaz. 41 187 The daughter chromosomes..are transformed into the mother skein of the second division rather rapidly.
† mother-spar n. Obsolete the matrix of an ore.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > minerals > mineral sources > [noun] > material containing ore > matrix
miner?a1425
mother stone1442
minera?1645
matrix1651
mother-spar1681
veinstone1696
gangue1778
veinstuff1796
gangart1799
matrice1855
cement1881
skarn1901
1681 N. Grew Musæum Regalis Societatis iii. i. v. 306 The Mother-Spar of the Tin-Ore.
† mother spot n. Obsolete a birthmark (cf. mother's mark n. at Compounds 5b).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > blemish > [noun] > spot or mark > birth-mark
birthmark1579
longing mark1644
native note1658
signature1659
naevus1684
mother spot1690
naevus maternus1726
mother's mark1797
mother mark1822
strawberry-mark1847
birth stain1850
port wine mark1853
spider cancer1898
spider-naevus1898
spider1942
spider angioma1956
1690 S. Blankaart Lexicon Novum Medicum 388 Macula Matricalis, the mother spot.
1823 Lancet 19 Oct. 78/2 For nœvus maternus (vulgarly called mother spot) of the under lip.
1827 Medico-chirurg. Trans. 13 421 (note) The conspicuous congenital malformations..are called nævi materni, to which the expressions, congenitæ notæ, mother spots,..are synonymous.
mother star n. Cell Biology now disused the metaphase configuration of chromosomes; = monaster n.
ΚΠ
1887 Amer. Naturalist 21 150 Then the outer limbs of the loops break, leaving a lot of V-shaped filaments having their apices towards a common centre. This is the ‘mother-star’.
1898 Science 18 Feb. 223/1 The centrosomes..fragment into a number of centrosome granules, one of which remains as the centrosomes of the later stages (mother star and later).
1904 Bot. Gaz. 37 201 The chromosomes in the stage of the mother star in vegetative cell division have mostly the figure of J-forming threads.
mother-starter n. a stock culture of starter bacteria, used in the production of various dairy products.
ΚΠ
1906 G. L. McKay & C. Larsen Princ. & Pract. Butter-making 217 The sample which coagulates into a smooth uniform curd, and has a pleasant acid taste and smell is selected and used as a mother-starter.
1920 W. Clayton Margarine 48 The milk is soured by inoculation after pasteurization with suitable quantities of pure cultures, these in turn having been made from a specially-cared-for ‘mother-starter’.
1927 T. P. Hilditch Industr. Chem. Fats & Waxes 254 More of the pasteurized milk is then inoculated with about 3–6 per cent. of the mother-starter.
† mother stone n. Obsolete (a) a type of stone (not identified); (b) a rock from which another rock is derived by structural or chemical change, a parent rock; (c) the matrix of an ore or mineral.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > minerals > mineral sources > [noun] > material containing ore > matrix
miner?a1425
mother stone1442
minera?1645
matrix1651
mother-spar1681
veinstone1696
gangue1778
veinstuff1796
gangart1799
matrice1855
cement1881
skarn1901
1442 in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) I. 386 Cariage of xviij lodis of modrestone.
1777 A. Young in A. Hunter et al. Georgical Ess. (new ed.) ii. iv. 391 Its abounding with the stone, called, in Hertfordshire, Mother-stone, (a concretion of many small blue pebbles).
1794 R. Kirwan Elements Mineral. (ed. 2) I. 433 Granite..is the mother-stone, by whose fusion basalt is produced.
1799 J. Robertson Gen. View Agric. Perth 17 Which some farmers call motherstone soil.
1855 J. R. Leifchild Cornwall: Mines & Miners 91 Quartz generally prevails in the matrix (mother stone).
mother-substitute n. a person who or thing which takes the place of the mother.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > mother-substitute
mother surrogate1932
mother-substitute1933
1933 Jrnl. Educ. Sociol. 6 388 The teacher is apt to become a mother substitute, a father substitute, or a condensation of both.
1965 F. Sargeson Mem. Peon vi. 173 Two young sparrow-legged ruffians..engaged in selling my mother-substitute a large trolley-load of empty bottles.
1990 Bull. Hispanic Stud. 67 351 Jane Hawking examined the character of Celestina as a mother-substitute.
† mother suppository n. Obsolete a vaginal pessary.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > healing > medical appliances or equipment > suppositories, etc. > [noun] > for the womb
mother suppository1578
1578 H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball i. lxxxviii. 130 Pessarie (whiche is a mother suppositorie).
1597 J. Gerard Herball i. 145 Vsed in maner of a pessarie or mother suppositorie.
mother surrogate n. a mother-substitute.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > mother-substitute
mother surrogate1932
mother-substitute1933
1932 Jrnl. Educ. Sociol. 6 137 Some one..should be ready to assume the function of big brother or sister, or of father or mother surrogate.
1959 Science 21 Aug. 422/3 We took the calculated risk of constructing and using inanimate mother surrogates rather than real mothers.
1985 G. Paley Later Same Day 87 We all require a mother or mother-surrogate to fix our pillows.
mother-symbol n. †(a) something which symbolically marks the beginning of a body, organization, etc. (in quot. 1852 with reference to the Augsburg Confession) (obsolete); (b) (as a term in various academic disciplines) a thing which stands as a symbol of the mother or of motherhood.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > [noun] > mother image or symbol
mother-symbol1852
mother imago1916
mother image1923
1852 S. S. Schucker Amer. Lutheran Church 203 To this substantial recognition of the mother symbol of Protestantism, the General synod still adheres.
1926 Jrnl. Royal Anthropol. Inst. 59 191 The tree is a mother-symbol.
1956 R. F. C. Hull tr. C. G. Jung 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.
1987 MLN 102 299 One who relates to her as a woman rather than an idealized mother-symbol.
† mother-thought n. Obsolete rare = mother-idea n.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of ideation > idea, notion, or concept > [noun] > fundamental
mother-idea1821
idée mère1841
mother-thought1861
seed thought1863
1861 J. L. Motley Let. 19 Apr. in Corr. (1889) I. xiii. 368 As to the mother-thought of the book, it is to me original.
† mother-thyme n. Obsolete mother of thyme.
ΚΠ
1737 Compl. Family-piece (ed. 2) i. iv. 254 Take..Agrimony, Mother-thyme,..Roman Wormwood, Carduus Benedictus.
mother tincture n. Homoeopathy an undiluted tincture of a drug.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > healing > medicines or physic > medicines of specific form > tincture > [noun] > specific tinctures
potable Mars1694
elixir1736
Huxham's tincture1788
sacred elixir1797
sacred tincture1797
alcoholature1831
mother tincture1842
Mimulus1933
1842 F. Black Treat. Princ. & Pract. Homœopathy vi. 72 The alcohol..employed for the preparation of tinctures (mother tinctures, as they are called) should be nearly anhydrous.
1880 Appletons' Jrnl. Nov. 479/2 To put the mother-tincture through thirty decimal dilutions.
1902 Encycl. Brit. XXIX. 312/2 The pure tinctures are denominated ‘mother tinctures’.
1983 B. Inglis & R. West Alternative Health Guide 71 Once the ‘mother tincture’ has been diluted to the required potency and ‘succussed’ (shaken up), a few drops are introduced into a small bottle.
2000 Here's Health May 17/3 Extracts of the chosen ingredient are dissolved in a mixture of alcohol and water..then strained to make what is called the ‘mother tincture’.
mother wasp n. now rare a queen wasp (in quot. 1679, interpreted as a male wasp).
ΚΠ
1609 C. Butler Feminine Monarchie iv. sig. D7 In their last brood, which is in Scorpio..they haue..drones or male-wasps..and mother-wasps.
1679 M. Rusden Further Discov. Bees 4 The Male among Wasps, which some call the Mother-Wasp, stings more venemously than the common Wasp doth.
1692 J. Ray Wisdom of God (ed. 2) i. 114 One great Mother-wasp..lying hid in some hollow Tree, or other Latibulum.
1886 Science 5 Feb. 128/2 The mother-wasp..knows the kind of an egg she is to lay.
1927 F. Balfour-Browne Insects viii. 188 The mother wasp burrows in the ground or in decaying vegetable material or rotten wood in search of the larvæ of chafer beetles.
1988 Jrnl. Animal Ecol. 57 164 Eggs are laid, and larvae develop, in small groups on the outside of hosts which have been paralysed by the mother wasp.
† mother-water n. Obsolete = mother liquor n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > chemistry > crystallography (general) > crystallization > [noun] > the liquid left after
mother1611
mother-water1651
mother liquor?1698
mother liquid1830
1651 J. French Art Distillation 61 The Mother-water commonly called Hystericall Water is made thus.
1665 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 1 46 They let it run through Pipes into the Kettles, adding to it half as much Mother-water, which is that water, that remains after boyling of the hardened Coperas.
1758 A. Reid tr. P. J. Macquer Elements Theory & Pract. 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.
1854 J. Scoffern in Orr's Circle Sci., Chem. 14 To clear away from any crystalline product the mother-water.
1883 R. Haldane Workshop Receipts 2nd Ser. 350/1 The mother-liquor is conducted through the pipe for mother-water to the precipitators.
† mother-wool n. Obsolete rare wool from the back and neck of a fleece.
ΚΠ
1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Wool The French and English usually separate each Fleece into three Sorts; viz. 1. Mother-Wool, which is that of the Back and Neck.
mother yaw n. Medicine a large, persistent skin lesion in an endemic treponematosis; esp. the primary lesion of yaws (cf. mama-pian n.; mamma-yaw n.).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > suppuration > [noun] > a suppuration > abscess > ulcer > of yaws
master yaw1744
yaw1744
tubboe1769
mamma-yaw1801
mama-pian1822
mother yaw1822
mother-pian1898
1822 J. M. Good Study Med. II. 675 The master-fungus being named [in St Domingo] mama-pian, or mother-yaw.
1890 J. S. Billings National Med. Dict. ii. 107/1 Mamanpian, the initial growth in yaws; the mother-yaw.
1996 G. C. Cook Manson's Trop. Dis. (ed. 20) liv. 941/1 After an average incubation period of 21 days the initial or primary lesion (‘mother yaw’) appears at the site of entry of the organisms.

Derivatives

ˈmotherwards adv. towards one's mother.
ΚΠ
1893 Tablet 15 July 110 It does not forbid the dying son to cast his eyes motherwards.
ˈmotherwise adv. in a motherly fashion.
ΚΠ
1890 R. Le Gallienne G. Meredith 52 She smiles on them motherwise.
1910 W. J. Locke Simon Jester xix. 241 With strong shapely arms that had as yet only held me motherwise.
1914 W. J. Locke Fortunate Youth x. 142 And if a woman of that age cannot fall in love with a boy sweetly mother-wise, what is the good of her?
a1974 L. Durrell Coll. Poems (1985) 17 Will you remember it and, mother-wise Thank me in these chill after-days When I am empty-handed?
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

mothern.2

Brit. /ˈmʌðə/, U.S. /ˈməðər/
Forms: 1500s– mother, 1800s– muther (English regional); also Scottish pre-1700 moder.
Origin: Probably a variant or alteration of another lexical item. Etymon: mother n.1
Etymology: Probably < mother n.1; compare Middle Dutch moeder , moer (Dutch moer ), Middle Low German mōder (German regional (Low German) Moder ), German Mutter , all identical in form and gender with the equivalent of mother n.1Probably originally a specific application of mother n.1 Outside Germanic comparable usage may be seen in a number of Romance languages, as post-classical Latin mater lees, dregs (13th cent. in British sources), Old French, Middle French mere lees of wine (1260; French mère lees, dregs, scum: now chiefly regional except in phrase mère de vinaigre mother of vinegar (1767; compare Middle Dutch moeder van den aysine , German Essigmutter (17th cent.))), Italian madre mother of oil (1611 in Florio), Spanish madre scum of liquids, sediment in wine (1763; 1721 in phrase madre del vino ). 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 ancient Greek γραῦς old woman, is used in the sense ‘scum, as of boiled milk’, but the coincidence is probably accidental. An alternative etymology regards the word (with its Germanic equivalents) as an alteration, by folk etymology, of Middle Dutch modder mud, mire (compare the rare variant moeder , occurring chiefly in derivatives: see also German cognates cited s.v. mud n.1). This connection was apparently first made by Kiliaan in his early modern Dutch dictionary of 1599, 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 ’. According to this theory the Romance parallels cited above must be regarded as calques. However, there is no evidence that Middle Dutch, Dutch modder was or is ever used in the sense ‘dregs, scum’, nor is this sense recorded for any of the German cognates. In sense 1 the 16th-cent. use relating to oil is after classical Latin amurca lees of oil (see amurcous adj.).
1. Dregs, sediment; scum; mould; esp. the lees or sediment of wine; the scum rising to the surface of fermenting liquors. Formerly also (in 16th cent.): the dregs or scum of oil. English regional in later use.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > materials > derived or manufactured material > extracted or refined oil > [noun] > residue of
oil-dregs?1440
motherc1485
foam of oil1538
foot1687
the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > dirtiness > pollution or defilement > [noun] > specific impurities > scum > types of scum
motherc1485
froth1541
motheriness1742
laitance1909
c1485 ( G. Hay Bk. Gouernaunce of Princis (1993) xxxii. 107 Claret wyne..clere but the moder scailde.
1538 T. Elyot Dict. Amurca, the mother or foam of all oyles.
1563 T. Hill Arte Gardening (1593) 31 The new mother or fome of oyle.
1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry ii. f. 69 Powre into a platter, the thickest mother of oyle [L. amurca].
1600 R. Surflet tr. C. Estienne & J. Liébault Maison Rustique iii. xlix. 529 Else your cyder will..growe couered with much white mother swimming aloft.
1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. 159 The mother or lees of oile oliue [Fr. la lye d'huyle d'oliue; L. amurca].
1609 C. Butler Feminine Monarchie x. sig. L5 The Meth in time wilbe covered with a mother.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Fleur du vin, the mother of wine; the white, or mouldie spots that float on the top of old wine.
1626 F. Bacon Sylua Syluarum §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.
1814 H. F. Cary tr. Dante Vision III. xii. 106 That, mouldy mother is, where late were lees.
1870 A. Henfrey & M. T. Masters Elem. Course Bot. (ed. 2) 454 Distribution [of filamentous Fungi or ‘Moulds’]. Universal,..occurring constantly in infusions of organic matter..as ‘mother’, producing various fermentations.
1893 in H. T. Cozens-Hardy Broad Norfolk (Eastern Daily Press) 53 Mother appears on pickles and jams as a sort of whiteness on the top when fermentation has set in.
1923 E. Gepp Essex Dial. Dict. (ed. 2) 78 Mother..is scum, mould.
2. spec. = mother of vinegar n. at Compounds 1.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > chemistry > organic chemistry > other substances > [noun] > misc
mother of vinegar1601
mother1682
pollenin1816
viscin1838
mothering1841
xylite1843
anethole1852
hypoxanthine1857
fibroin1861
gutta1864
xanthogen1864
vanillin1868
cerulignone1873
sinalbin1875
phloroglucol1881
scopoletin1885
irisin1887
givre1888
pararabin1893
urushiol1908
silvichemical1963
nopaline1972
1682 N. Grew Anat. Plants iv. i. vi. 158 The Cuticular and other Concretions, commonly called Mothers, in Distill'd Waters, Vinegar, and other Liquors.
1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 460 The slimy sediment of vinegar casks called mother.
1870 J. R. Lowell My Study Windows (1871) 95 Unhappily the bit of mother from Swift's vinegar-barrel has had strength enough to sour all the rest [of Carlyle].
1974 Times 16 Nov. 11/1 Obtaining a culture or ‘vinegar mother’ can only be done on a person-to-person basis... Once the ‘mother’ is in its crock or jar, it is only necessary to keep it covered with wine.
1994 Daily Tel. 26 Feb. (Weekend Suppl.) 10/8 Should you wish to grow your own mother, here's how.

Compounds

(in phrasal combinations with of).
C1.
† mother of grapes n. (also mother of the grape, mother of the grapes) Obsolete the solid mass of skins, etc., left after wine-grapes have been pressed; = marc n. 1.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > drink > manufacture of alcoholic drink > wine-making > [noun] > mass of grape-skins or refuse
marc1601
pressing1607
mother of grapes1611
murk1675
grape-cake1830
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Espeé,..a certaine round staffe, that lies betweene the vpper boords of a Vinepresse, and the mother, or substance of the grapes.
1694 P. A. Motteux tr. F. Rabelais 5th Bk. Wks. vii For fear there should still lurk some Juice among the Husks, and Hullings, in the Mother of the Grape.
1725 R. Bradley Chomel's Dictionaire Œconomique at Vinegar To make strong Vinegar, dry the Mother of Grapes for the space of two Days.
mother of vinegar n. a ropy slime which forms on the surface of alcoholic liquids during acetogenic fermentation and is used to initiate such fermentation in other alcoholic liquids; (also) the organism which produces this slime, which is a bacterium of the genus Acetobacter (formerly thought to be a fungus).
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > chemistry > organic chemistry > other substances > [noun] > misc
mother of vinegar1601
mother1682
pollenin1816
viscin1838
mothering1841
xylite1843
anethole1852
hypoxanthine1857
fibroin1861
gutta1864
xanthogen1864
vanillin1868
cerulignone1873
sinalbin1875
phloroglucol1881
scopoletin1885
irisin1887
givre1888
pararabin1893
urushiol1908
silvichemical1963
nopaline1972
1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. xxviii. xvi. 334 A pultesse made of beasts dung & the mother of vinegre [Fr. avec de lye de vinaigre; L. cum aceti faece] tempered together.
1849 Commerc. Rev. South & West Oct. 344 [It] underwent a regular fermentation, developing those albumenous clouds, like the ‘mother of vinegar’, and presented sufficient characters to prove it to be of animal origin.
1879 Encycl. Brit. IX. 98/2 Mother of vinegar..is the ‘non-aerobiotic’ form of the mycoderma.
1937 Discovery Sept. 282/1 ‘Mother’ of vinegar, that jelly-like mass often seen in a bottle, is the vinegar bacterium itself, of a type known as xylinum.
2000 Guardian 18 Mar. (Weekend Suppl.) 77/1 Barrels filled with good wine and good vinegar..plus a bacteria-rich slime called mother of vinegar.
C2. In the names of minerals.
mother of gold n. [apparently after Spanish madre del oro (see quot. 1596 at mother n.1 3d)] a rock or mineral supposed to indicate the presence of gold.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the earth > minerals > mineral sources > [noun] > indicators of presence
mother of gold1596
show1600
shoad1602
squad1674
prospect1709
indication1855
showing1877
lode-light1883
indicator1894
1596 W. Raleigh Discoverie Guiana (new ed.) 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.
1712 E. 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.
1860 Harper's Mag. Apr. 610/2 Savans have at last been compelled to admit that ‘quartz is the mother of gold’.
1922 V. Hemphill Down Mother Lode Foreword It was the haunt of Harte, and Twain, and Canfield in the north; it was the bank of such men as Hopkins, Crocker, Huntington and Stanford; the foundation of one of the greatest states in the Union, the Mother Lode, the Mother of Gold!
† mother of the mine n. Obsolete a kind of iron ore consisting largely of clay.
ΚΠ
a1728 J. Woodward Attempt Nat. Hist. Fossils Eng. (1729) i. 232 Clayey Iron-Ore... The Miners call it the Mother of the Mine.
1794 W. Hutchinson Catal. Animals in Hist. Cumberland I. 52 Bole; this is..called by the country people clayey iron ore, rud and smit... Miners call it mother of the mine.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

motherv.1

Brit. /ˈmʌðə/, U.S. /ˈməðər/
Forms: late Middle English modre, 1500s– mother.
Origin: Formed within English, by conversion. Etymon: mother n.1
Etymology: < mother n.1
1. transitive. To be or become the mother of, give birth to; (chiefly figurative) to be the source or originator of, give rise to, produce.In quot. a1425 perhaps intransitive.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > causation > source or origin > originate or be a source of [verb (transitive)]
sow971
mothera1425
author1598
origin1640
to be at the bottom of1650
principle1650
originate1653
inchoate1654
originize1657
a1425 Medulla Gram. (Stonyhurst) f. 47v Parento, to fadren & modren.
1548 E. Gest Treat. againste Masse sig. Avi This pryuate masse whych mothereth so manyfolde and haynouse vyces.
1657 J. Harington Hist. Polindor & Flostella (ed. 3) 168 So true, that Natures self does start; Half mothering that meer Child of Art.
1850 J. S. Blackie tr. Æschylus Lyrical Dramas II. 189 But tears are vain, And weeping might but mother worser woe.
1900 Nation (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.
1941 I. L. Idriess Great Boomerang vii. 52 With the valley mothering a flood of waters they waited in that cleft in the cliff, grimly content.
1986 Sci. Amer. Aug. 16/1 Through normal birth she has just mothered a normal, contented baby.
2. transitive. With on, upon.
†a. To deem a child to be that of a particular woman. Obsolete. rare.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > motherhood > be a mother [verb (transitive)] > attribute motherhood to
mother1542
1542 N. Udall tr. Erasmus Apophthegmes i. f. 139v A childe mothered on a woman that neuer beare it, or, a chaungelyng.
1888 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms II. xi. 186 They must have changed her, and mothered the wrong child on the old woman.
b. figurative. To attribute the authorship of (a work) to a woman; (also) to ascribe the origin of (something) to a person, a cause, etc. Usually in passive.
ΘΚΠ
the world > existence and causation > causation > source or origin > originate or be a source of [verb (transitive)] > attribute to an author or source
refera1398
reducec1454
father?1499
entitle1550
intitule1559
foist1598
attribute1599
mother1645
authoridate1652
accredit1864
1645 J. Goodwin Innocency & Truth Triumphing 35 That conception..is indifferently fathered, or mothered rather, upon them all.
a1674 T. Traherne Christian Ethicks (1675) 300 Which Accident is wholy to be fathered on Adams fondness to please his Wife, and to be mothered upon her Lightness and Credulity.
1831 Fraser's Mag. 4 11 [She] wrote the greater portion of a novel which was mothered on Miss Spence.
1907 Blackwood's Mag. May 668/2 Many venerable repartees were mothered on her.
†3.
a. transitive. To profess to be the mother of. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > mother > motherhood > be a mother [verb (transitive)] > profess to be mother of
mothera1640
a1640 J. Fletcher & P. Massinger Spanish Curat v. iii, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. H/1 You Sir, that Would have me mother Bastards, being unable To honour me with one Child of mine owne.
1679 W. Howell Medulla Hist. Angl. 396 That the Queen to have put the lady Elizabeth besides the Crown, would have mothered another bodies Child; but King Philip scorn'd to Father it.
b. transitive. figurative. To profess to be the author or originator of. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > faculty of imagination > inventive or creative faculty > contrive, devise, or invent [verb (transitive)]
findeOE
conceive1340
seek1340
brewc1386
divine1393
to find outc1405
to search outc1425
to find up?c1430
forgec1430
upfindc1440
commentc1450
to dream out1533
inventa1538
father1548
spina1575
coin1580
conceit1591
mint1593
spawn1594
cook1599
infantize1619
fabulize1633
notionate1645
to make upc1650
to spin outa1651
to cook up1655
to strike out1735
mother1788
to think up1855
to noodle out1950
gin1980
1788 A. 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.
1840 T. A. Trollope Summer in 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.
1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 12 June 4/2 Such books are translated by some humble hand, and fathered or mothered by another of some literary standing.
4.
†a. transitive. With it. To act or behave like a mother. Obsolete.
ΚΠ
1732 Criticism 6 in H. Fielding Covent-Garden Trag. If I mistake not, in the Scene immediately preceding, Bilkum and she have mother'd and son'd it several times.
b. transitive. figurative. To protect, as with maternal care. (In quot. 1901 with reference to the protection of a smaller craft by a mother ship.)
ΚΠ
1851 H. Melville Moby-Dick cxvi. 550 Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!
1889 Chicago Advance 21 Feb. The weak churches do feel deeply the need of brotherhood. They want to be mothered.
1899 S. Baring-Gould Bk. of West I. xii. 208 Okehampton..is not fathered by the castle, nor mothered by the church.
1901 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Oct. 449 Torpedo craft could also be ‘mothered’.
1917 ‘Contact’ Airman's Outings 185 If, later, a further advance be made, the low-flying contact machines again play their part of mothering the infantry.
1993 D. Weissbort Nietzsche's Attaché Case 55 The war mothered us, Sang us lullabies, Spoiled us. Never again were we so looked after.
c. transitive. literal. To bring up, take care of, or protect as a mother; to look after in a (sometimes excessively) kindly and protective way. Frequently in passive.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > safety > protection or defence > care, protection, or charge > care for, protect, or have charge of [verb (transitive)] > affectionately or tenderly > like a father or mother
fathera1616
mother1863
1863 C. 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.
1878 Scribner's Monthly 15 555/1 Some mothers ‘mother’ their children too much.
1894 Mrs. H. Ward Marcella I. i. vii. 127 Someone..will take up Marcella and mother her.
1915 W. S. Maugham Of Human Bondage cxx. 635 Sally mothered them all, keeping a watchful eye on them.
1930 J. Reith Diary 20 Mar. (1975) i. 104 Mr Baldwin..said he always felt so safe with me and that it was very nice to be mothered.
1955 A. West Heritage i. 24 There are more things to cry about in life than going away from home to a farm with..that daft Mrs Willingham to mother you.
1987 R. P. Jhabvala Three Continents i. 36 That was what Manton needed from women, to be mothered and admired.
5. Agriculture.
a. transitive. To find a mother for (a lamb or calf); to match up (a lamb or calf) with a mother. Also: to pick out from a flock the mother of (a particular lamb). Now chiefly New Zealand.In quot. 1772 used reflexively of a lamb (cf. sense 5b).
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > animal husbandry > rear animals [verb (transitive)] > find mother for
mother1772
1772 in Sc. National Dict. (1965) at Minnie Four or six lambs broke off from the flock of eild sheep..and run [sic] to the ewes, and minnied or mothered themselves by sucking.
1844 H. Stephens Bk. of 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.
1889 Zealandia 1 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.
1890 Cornhill 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 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Romance of Canvas Town 92 It is vitally necessary to turn-out all the lambs and get them ‘mothered’ as soon as they are ‘tailed’.
1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Sept. 197/3 All lambs can be properly mothered up before nightfall.
b. intransitive. Originally and chiefly New Zealand. Of a lamb or calf: to attach itself to a ewe or cow as mother. Of a lamb or calf and a ewe or cow: to match up. Also with up.
ΚΠ
1950 N.Z. Jrnl. Agric. Sept. 202/1 Do not move the ewes until all the lambs have mothered.
1956 Weekly News (Auckland) 8 Feb. 45 I was to keep them [sc. sheep] there until dark to ‘mother-up’.
1957 New Biol. 22 101 Some lambs failed to ‘mother’ after treatment.
1961 R. 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.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

motherv.2

Brit. /ˈmʌðə/, U.S. /ˈməðər/
Forms: 1700s muther, 1700s– mother.
Origin: Formed within English, by conversion. Etymon: mother n.2
Etymology: < mother n.2
†1. intransitive. To become full of sediment or dregs; to become mouldy. Cf. mothering adj.2, mothery adj. 1. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > cleanness and dirtiness > dirtiness > pollution or defilement > be polluted [verb (intransitive)] > become covered with scum > become mothery
mother1697
1697 [implied in: J. Dryden tr. Virgil Georgics iii, in tr. Virgil Wks. 116 They oint their naked Limbs with mother'd Oyl. View more context for this quotation].
1718 J. Quincy Pharmacopœia Officinalis 228 It's an insipid Phlegm..and will not keep long without mothering and stinking.
1732 E. Smith Compl. Housewife (ed. 5) 73 If your Pickle mothers, boil it again.
1750 S. Johnson Rambler No. 51. ⁋15 Her conserves mould, her wines sour, and pickles mother.
1777 Farmer's Mag. Sept. 310* If your onions should muther, boil them over again.
1829 J. Hunter Hallamshire Gloss. at Cain'd When a white substance appears on the top of bottled ale; the same as in some places is called mother'd.
2. intransitive. English regional (northern and midlands). To thicken; to become sticky, adhere. rare.
ΚΠ
1888 R. Leader in S. O. Addy Gloss. Words Sheffield 152 Flour mothers when it adheres together in lumps.
1895 T. Pinnock Black Country Ann. in Eng. Dial. Dict. (1903) IV. 174/2 Mother.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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