mother
noun /ˈmʌðə(r)/
/ˈmʌðər/
Idioms - a female parent of a child or animal; a person who is acting as a mother to a child
- I want to buy a present for my mother and father.
- the relationship between mother and baby
- She's the mother of twins.
- a mother of three (= with three children)
- a young/new/single mother
- an expectant (= pregnant) mother
- Jenny is a stay-at-home mother of three.
- Affordable childcare is critical for working mothers.
- She was a wonderful mother to both her natural and adopted children.
- the mother chimpanzee caring for her young
Extra ExamplesTopics Family and relationshipsa1, Life stagesa1- The new candidate was raised by a single mother in South London.
- She acted as a surrogate mother to the brothers.
- Her distraught mother had spent all night waiting by the phone.
- She felt proud that she had raised four children as a lone mother.
- She inherited the urge to travel from her mother.
- The boys were like their father, but Louise took after her mother.
- The court decided she was an unfit mother.
- caring for his sick mother
- his beloved mother
- the proud mother of the bride
- This is my mother, Joan.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- lone
- single
- unmarried
- …
- resemble
- take after
- inherit something from
- …
- the title of a woman who is head of a convent (= a community of nuns) see also Mother Superior
Word OriginOld English mōdor, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch moeder and German Mutter, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin mater and Greek mētēr.
Idioms
at your mother’s knee
- when you were very young
- I learnt these songs at my mother's knee.
the mother of (all) something
- (informal) used to emphasize that something is very large, unpleasant, important, etc.
- I got stuck in the mother of all traffic jams.
necessity is the mother of invention
- (saying) a difficult new problem forces people to think of a solution to it
old enough to be somebody’s father/mother
- (disapproving) very much older than somebody (especially used to suggest that a romantic or sexual relationship between the two people is not appropriate)