noun
mother
MUHTH-uh
noun
1
A female parent.
"Her mother taught her to bake when she was six."
"He calls his mother every Sunday evening."
2
The origin or source of something.
"Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention."
verb
1
To care for someone the way a mother would, sometimes to an overprotective degree.
"She tends to mother her younger colleagues."
"Stop mothering me — I can handle it myself."
How to Use Mother
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA female parent, or, more broadly, the origin of something, or the act of caring for someone protectively.
Common pairings
mother tongue
mother of invention
mother figure
mother someone
Word Forms
mothered past tense, mothers plural, mothers plural, Mothers plural, mothers singular
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Her _____ taught her to bake when she was six.
Etymology
From Old English modor, from a very old Proto-Indo-European root that also gave us "matter", "matrix" and "Madeira".