- moth|er
- moth|er1 «MUHTH uhr», noun, verb, adjective.–n.1. a woman who has given birth to a child: »
The mother and father were very proud of their new baby.
2. a female parent: »The puppies have lost their mother.
3. Figurative. the cause or source of anything: »Necessity is the mother of invention. France, the mother of ideas (Walter Besant).
4. Figurative. the largest and most perfect example: archetype: »Charging that the prosecution had “a game plan, a party line,” Mr. Cook described the entire investigation as “the mother of all cover-ups” (New York Times).
5. the head of a large community of religious women; mother superior.6. a woman exercising control and responsibility like that of a mother.7. a familiar name for an old woman.8. a female ancestor.9. the qualities characteristic of a mother; maternal affection: »... the mother in her soul awakes (Alexander Pope).
10. Archaic. hysteria: »She is…much subject to fits of the mother (Tobias Smollett).
–v.t.1. to take care of; be mother of; act as mother to: »She mothers her baby sister.
2. to acknowledge oneself mother of or assume as one's own.3. to give birth to; produce as a mother: »Figurative. The floods were mothered by another hurricane (Time).
–adj.1. that is a mother: »a mother bear.
2. like a mother; that bears or produces others: »a mother vein from which many ores are derived, the mother cathedral of England, a mother nucleus.
3. of a mother: »mother love, mother pain.
4. Figurative. native: »English is our mother tongue. The poet, Robert Frost, was a product of his New England mother culture.
5. that carries another or others: »a mother craft.
╂[alteration of Old English mōdor. Compare etym. under father.]moth|er2 «MUHTH uhr», noun.a stringy, sticky substance formed in vinegar or on the surface of liquids that are turning to vinegar; mother of vinegar. Mother consists of bacteria. Sometimes mother is added to liquids to cause them to turn to vinegar.
Useful english dictionary. 2012.
