mother

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A female parent; a woman who has or raises a child.

   I am visiting my mother today.

2. 2
   noun

   The source or origin of something.

   Necessity is the mother of invention.

3. 3
   noun

   The biggest or most extreme example of something.

   They got caught in the mother of all traffic jams.

Common collocations

• new mother Adjective + noun
• single mother Adjective + noun
• become a mother Verb + noun
• miss one's mother Verb + noun
• working mother Adjective + noun
• expectant mother Adjective + noun

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr Proto-Germanic *mōdēr Proto-West Germanic *mōder Old English mōdor Middle English moder English mother From Middle English moder, from Old English mōdor, from Proto-West Germanic *mōder, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr, from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr. Doublet of Madeira, mata, mater, matrix, and matter. Some have proposed that the "dregs" sense is from Middle Dutch modder (“filth”), from Proto-Germanic *muþraz (“sediment”), but modder is not known in this meaning. On the other hand, words for "mother" have developed the secondary sense of "dregs" in se…

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