mam
/mam
/noun British informal or dialect
One’s mother: my mam would have had a fit if I’d gone out dressed like that [as name]: it was better when Mam was alive...
- But mam, I can't stay in the same room as them!
- The hardest task was to go to mam in her eighties and break the news.
- I managed to say goodbye to mam and my siblings by making myself think of something else as we hugged, but my dad, to whom I was closest, locked himself in the bathroom.
Origin
Late 16th century: perhaps imitative of a child's first syllables (see mama).