mother

noun

1. A female parent, especially of a human; a female who parents a child (which she has given birth to, adopted, or fostered).

   “I am visiting my mother today.”

   “The lioness was a mother of four cubs.”

2. A female who has given birth to a baby; this person in relation to her child or children.

   “My sister-in-law has just become a mother for the first time.”

   “He had something of his mother in him.”

   “He had something of his mother in him, but this was because he realized that in the end only her love was unconditional, and in gratitude he had emulated her.”

   “The "Ritual to Celebrate Birthing" begins with a leader welcoming all participants : "Welcome to this celebration for N. She is approaching the time when she will become a mother for the first time (or become a mother again).”

   “In many countries, up to 1 in 5 new mothers experience a mood or anxiety disorder. Unfortunately, these conditions often go undiagnosed and untreated due to lack of awareness and stigma, and everyone pays the price. […] To find out more, I spoke with CNN wellness expert Dr. Leana Wen. Wen, a mother of two young kids, is an emergency physician and adjunct associate professor at the George Washington University.”

3. A pregnant female; mother-to-be; a female who gestates a baby.

   “Nutrients and oxygen obtained by the mother are conveyed to the fetus.”

   “The antiabortion iconography in the last decade featured the fetus but never the mother.”

   “To clone a boy, it is necessary to have a man as a DNA donor, a woman as an egg donor, and may be another woman as a surrogate mother.”

   “If the cat to be cloned is female, the nucleus donor cat could also be used as the surrogate mother instead of another cat.”

4. A female who donates a fertilized egg or donates a body cell which has resulted in a clone.
5. (figuratively)A female ancestor.

   “And Adã called his wyfe Heua⸝ becauſe ſhe was the mother of all that lyveth”

6. (figuratively)A source or origin.

   “Near-synonym: matrix”

   “The Mediterranean was mother to many cultures and languages.”

   “Alas poore Countrey, / Almoſt affraid to know it ſelfe. It cannot / Be call’d our Mother, but our Graue;”

   “But one in the place of God and not God, is as it were a falsehood; it is the mother falsehood from which all idolatry is derived.”

   “How on earth are we supposed to hold our heads high as the ‘mother of parliaments’ when we allow to continue the practice of almost openly buying a seat in parliament?”

7. Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind. (See mother of all.)

   “Near-synonym: Big One”

   “1991, January 17, Saddam Hussein, Broadcast on Baghdad state radio. The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.”

8. (dated)A title of respect for one's mother-in-law.

   “Mother Smith, meet my cousin, Doug Jones.”

9. (dated)A term of address for one's wife.

   “A few minutes later we were all seated comfortably, Uncle Dave and mother, as he called his wife, myself and my husband, in the split-bottomed wooden chairs, on the vine-covered porch. / “Is Bethel a Methodist Church?” I asked. / Uncle Dave looked quizzically at his wife. “Do you hear that, mother?” he said.”

   “On some days as he got near the house he would call out to his wife: / “Almighty Moses, Martha! who left the sprinkler on the grass?” / On other days he would call to her from quite a little distance off: “Hullo, mother! Got any supper for a hungry man?””

   “(Mr. Hill enters. He crosses to Wife.) / Mr. Hill: Hello, mother. […] How are you? / Mrs. Hill: Nothing wrong, dear, I hope.”

10. (figuratively)Any elderly woman, especially within a particular community.

    “Near-synonyms: matron, matriarch”

11. (figuratively)Any person or entity which performs mothering.

    “Judges 5:7, KJV. The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel.”

    “Galatians 4:26, KJV. Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”

12. Dregs, lees; a stringy, mucilaginous or film- or membrane-like substance (consisting of a culture of acetobacters) which develops in fermenting alcoholic liquids (such as wine, or cider), and turns the alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen from the air.

    “pieces of mother ;   adding mother to vinegar”

13. A locomotive which provides electrical power for a slug.
14. The principal piece of an astrolabe, into which the others are fixed.
15. The female superior or head of a religious house; an abbess, etc.
16. (obsolete)Hysterical passion; hysteria; the uterus.

    “O how this mother ſwels vp toward my hart[…]”

    “T.V. dicusseth tumors and mollifieth them, helps inflammations, rising of the mother and the epilepsie being burnt.”

    “The Root hereof taken with Zedoary and Angelică, or without them, helps the rising of the Mother.”

    “St Botolph's parish records ascribed three deaths to 'mother', an old name for the uterus.”

17. A disc produced from the electrotyped master, used in manufacturing phonograph records.
18. A person who is admired, respected, or looked up to within a particular fandom or community; see also: serve cunt
19. (euphemistic, mildly, slang, vulgar)Motherfucker.

    “(Burn, baby, burn) Disco inferno / (Burn, baby, burn) Burn the mother down”

    “Stick a votive candle in it and fire that mother up, right?”

    “Who run this mother”

20. (colloquial, euphemistic)A striking example. (Appears as "mother of a(n) __".)

    “November, 1943 If ever, Cortney Anders promised himself, I get out of this mother of a thunderstorm there is a thing I will do if it is the last act of my life.”

    “Some hot night there's gonna be one mother of a riot down here. Just wait." He'd been saying the same thing since 1958, five years of crying wolf.”

    “Basically, we wind up with a program. One mother of a complex application.”

    “Josh, whose fleshy face resembles a rhino's - beady wide-set eyes blinking between a mother of a snout”

21. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of moth-er.
22. A title given to a nun or a priestess.

    “Mother Teresa Gertrude O’Sullivan, then Provincial, did not give higher education for Loreto nuns the same priority as had Mothers Gonzaga and Stanislaus.”

23. A title given to the personification of a force of nature or abstract concept, such as Mother Nature, Mother Russia, or Mother Earth.

verb

1. (transitive)To give birth to or produce (as its female parent) a child. (Compare father.)

   “Q's sister, Debbie, had mothered two kids by the time she was twenty, with neither of the fathers in sight.”

   “Zilpah, Leah's maid, mothered two sons for Jacob, Gad and Asher. Leah became pregnant once more and had two more sons, Issachar, and Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah, thus Leah had seven children for Jacob.”

2. (transitive)To treat as a mother would be expected to treat her child; to nurture.

   “She had seen fewer years than any of us, but she was of such superb Evehood and simplicity that she mothered us from the beginning.”

3. (transitive)To cause to contain mother (“that substance which develops in fermenting alcohol and turns it into vinegar”).

   “mothered oil, mothered vinegar, mothered wine”

4. (intransitive)To develop mother.

   “Iron rusted, paper cracked, cream soured and vinegar mothered.”

   “Your lamp was always polished, wick trimmed, waiting; yet the bridegroom somehow never came. Summer dust settled in the vineyard. Grapes were harvested; your parents crushed and pressed them, but the wine mothered.”

name

1. (dated)One's mother.
2. One of the triune goddesses of the Lady in Wicca alongside the Crone and Maiden and representing a woman older than a girlish Maiden but younger than an aged Crone.

   “...different stages of life as represented by our Lady as Maiden, Mother, and Crone, as well as our Lord as Master, Father, and Sage.”

   “The Lady is often thought of as having three aspects: Maiden, Mother, and Crone.”