Mother history of the word

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌðə(ɹ)/, [ˈmɐðə(ɹ)]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmʌðɚ/
• Rhymes: -ʌðə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: moth‧er

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English moder, from Old English mōdor, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr, from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr. Superseded non-native Middle English mere (“mother”) borrowed from Old French mere (“mother”). Doublet of mater.

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 several Romance and Germanic languages; compare Dutch moer, French mère de vinaigre, German Essigmutter, Italian madre, Medieval Latin māter, and Spanish madre.^[1]

Alternative forms[edit]

• mither (Scotland and Northern England)

Noun[edit]

mother (plural mothers)

1. A female parent, sometimes especially 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.

   • 1988, Robert Ferro, Second Son:

     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.

   • 2005, Trudelle Thomas, Spirituality in the Mother Zone: Staying Centered, Finding God, Paulist Press, →ISBN, page 41:

     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).

3. A pregnant female, possibly as a shortened form of mother-to-be; a female who gestates a baby.

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

   • 1991, Susan Faludi, The Undeclared War Against American Women:

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

   • (Can we date this quote?) Multiplicity Yours: Cloning, Stem Cell Research, and Regenerative Medicine, →ISBN:

     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.

   • 2023 January 16, Reinhard Renneberg, Biotechnology for Beginners, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 317:

     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.
6. (figuratively) A source or origin.

   The Mediterranean was mother to many cultures and languages.

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii], page 147, column 1:

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

   • 1844, Thomas Arnold, Fragment on the Church, Volume 1, page 17:

     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.

   • 2013 October 31, Rowena Mason, quoting David Steel, “Lord Steel criticises culture of spin and tweeting in modern politics”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     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.)
   • 1991, January 17, Saddam Hussein, Broadcast on Baghdad state radio.

     The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.

8. (dated, when followed by a surname) A title of respect for one’s mother-in-law.

   Mother Smith, meet my cousin, Doug Jones.

9. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (dated) A term of address for one’s wife.

   • 1887 April 2, E. V. Wilson, “Uncle Dave”, in The Current, volume 7, number 172, page 432:

     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.

   • 1922, Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town‎^[2], page 152:

     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?”

   • 1944, Walter Hackett, For the Duration: A Play for Junior and Senior High Schools, page 8:

     (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.
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 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. (rail transport) 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.
    • 1665, Robert Lovel, Pambotanologia sive Enchiridion botanicum, page 484:

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

    • 1666, Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physitian Enlarged, page 49:

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

    • 1979, Thomas R. Forbes, The changing face of death in London, in Charles Webster (editor), Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (1979), page 128:

      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.

Synonyms[edit]

• (one’s female parent): See also Thesaurus:mother
• (most significant thing): father, grandfather, granddaddy
• (of or pertaining to the mother, such as metropolis): metro-

Antonyms[edit]

• (with regards to gender) father
• (with regards to ancestry) daughter, son, child, offspring

Hypernyms[edit]

• (a female parent): parent

Coordinate terms[edit]

• (a female parent): father

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

Descendants[edit]

• → Japanese: マザー (mazā)
• → Korean: 마더 (madeo)
• Kriol: motha

Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

From Middle English modren, from the noun (see above).

Verb[edit]

mother (third-person singular simple present mothers, present participle mothering, simple past and past participle mothered)

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

   • 1998, Nina Revoyr, The Necessary Hunger: A Novel, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 101:

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

   • 2010, Lynette Joseph-Bani, The Biblical Journey of Slavery: From Egypt to the Americas, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 51:

     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.
   • c. 1900, O. Henry, An Adjustment of Nature

     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, of an alcohol) To develop mother.

   • 1968, Evelyn Berckman, The Heir of Starvelings, page 172:

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

   • 2013, Richard Dauenhauer, Benchmarks: New and Selected Poems 1963-2013, page 94:

     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.

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

• American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Fourth Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company 2003.

Etymology 3[edit]

Clipping of motherfucker

Alternative forms[edit]

• mutha

Noun[edit]

mother (plural mothers)

1. (euphemistic, mildly vulgar, slang) Motherfucker.

   • 1989 December 19, Slim Randles, “Entrepreneur Hopes Luminaria Delivery Service Catches On”, in The Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico, page 2:

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

   • 2011, Beyoncé Knowles (lyrics and music), “Run the World (Girls)”, in 4‎^[3]:

     Who run this mother

2. (euphemistic, colloquial) A striking example.

   • 1964, Richard L. Newhafer, The last tallyho:

     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.

   • 1980, Chester Anderson, Fox & hare: the story of a Friday night, page 5:

     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.

   • 2004 Nov, Rajnar Vajra, “The Ghost Within”, in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, volume 124, page 8:

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

   • 2006, Elizabeth Robinson, The true and outstanding adventures of the Hunt sisters:

     Josh, whose fleshy face resembles a rhino’s — beady wide-set eyes blinking between a mother of a snout

Synonyms[edit]

• MF, mofo, motherfucker, mutha

Translations[edit]

Etymology 4[edit]

Coined from moth by analogy to mouser.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɒθə(ɹ)/

Noun[edit]

mother (plural mothers)

1. Alternative form of moth-er

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “mother”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams[edit]

• thermo-

Middle English[edit]

Noun[edit]

mother

1. (Late Middle English) Alternative form of moder

Asked by: Jaron Harber

Score: 4.4/5
(52 votes)

According to The Oxford Dictionary, ‘mother’ comes from the Old English mōdor, from the Old Germanic moder, and from the Indo-European root mehter, shared also by the Latin mater and Greek mētēr. Indo-European is a reconstructed language, origin for many modern languages. … Of course, mother and love are interconnected.

Where is the word mother derived from?

“Mother” is the modern-English equivalent of the Old English “modor,” pronounced “moh-dor.” This comes from the Latin word “mater,” pronounced “mah-ter.” I’m sure most of the fine folks reading this could guess as much; does the phrase “Alma Mater” ring any bells? It means “nourishing mother” in good-ole Latin.

Is the word mother derived from Sanskrit?

The word mother can be traced back cleanly to Proto-Indo-European, as can father, brother and sister — it appears in cognate form in languages like Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and so forth, and it may go back further.

What is the Latin root word for mother?

The Latin root matr means “mother.” This Latin root is the word origin of a good number of English vocabulary words, including matriarch, material, and matter. The root matr is easily recalled via the word maternal, for a woman who acts in a maternal fashion is being “motherly.”

Does Mort mean death?

-mort-, root. -mort- comes from Latin, where it has the meaning «death. » This meaning is found in such words as: amortize, immortal, immortality, immortalize, morgue, mortal, mortality, mortgage.

19 related questions found

Where does the word “mother” come from? What does it mean? If, for some reason, you find yourself asking these questions, read on (and, as an aside, you might need to seek some professional help). For the wannabe linguistics geeks in the audience, this one is for you. Let’s a-fix ourselves to be a-learnin’ some etymology.

Before I get going, I’m sure there’s more than one curious soul in the audience wondering: “What the heck is etymology?” or perhaps: “Is etymology contagious?” Fear not. Etymology is just where a word comes from: its origins. As to its contagiousness, I suppose it depends on how interested you are in etymology. If the answer is “very much,” then you’re probably going to get infected. Sorry to tell you, but etymology is basically the Stone Age equivalent to internet memes unless you count those cave paintings (which you shouldn’t).

Let’s get back to talking about where our word of the hour comes from. “Mother” is the modern-English equivalent of the Old English “modor,” pronounced “moh-dor.” This comes from the Latin word “mater,” pronounced “mah-ter.” I’m sure most of the fine folks reading this could guess as much; does the phrase “Alma Mater” ring any bells? It means “nourishing mother” in good-ole Latin.

The Latin-originating prefix “matr-“ is sprinkled through the English language. A “matriarchy”? That’s a governing body or system lead by women. Was that one too easy? How about “material”? Or “matter”? These are the building blocks of reality: the “mothers” from which we construct things.

“Wait!” I hear you cry. “Does that mean the stuff we build are linguistic children? Wouldn’t they be our children, not the children of the stuff we are using to build them?” To you, my curious audience, I tell you: Listen here, buster brown. If all this is sounding like it doesn’t make sense, blame the language and not me. I’m just the messenger. I don’t make these awesome, stupid rules I only report them.

You’re welcome. 

But Latin is not the end of where we will go. There is a language from which even Latin, the most pretentious of languages, draws its origins. This language is generally referred to as the Proto-Indo-European language. (That’s the PIE language, to the laymen. Delicious.) This is the language that (hypothetically) branched out into the languages that most people speak today. Latin (and therefore a big chunk of English and romance languages like French, Italian and Spanish), Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Iranian, Albanian, Armenian, Celtic, Baltic and Slavic, among others,  can all trace a bunch of their words back to this hypothesized language.

I say “hypothesized” because there are no written documents to document this language’s existence. It had to get reconstructed piece by piece by looking up common factors between these languages (which is known as the “comparative method,” if you want to double-check my writing with a quick Wikipedia search). In this language, the word for “mother” was pronounced “may-ter.” I would give something like the original spelling, except there isn’t any.

So, there you have it: the etymological roots of the word we are all so jazzed about. The next time you are stuck in line getting groceries, you’ll have one more fun fact to pull out of your hat to bore the cashier. Again, you’re welcome.

Yoav is a senior in LAS.

[email protected]

According to wiktionary:

From Middle English moder, from Old English mōdor, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr (cf. East Frisian muur, Dutch moeder, German Mutter), from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (cf. Irish máthair, Tocharian A mācar, B mācer, Lithuanian mótė).

That’s abosultely right. Proto-Indo-European is the hypothetical ancestor language or protolanguage of most European and Indian languages.

That’s why in many languages of the same origin the word «Mother» is used with trivial variations. I’m don’t have a listing of the words you’re looking for.

Note that some words might have been used in other languages because of reasons other than language origins. For example many Arabic words are used by Muslims in middle east in countries like Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, etc. Or some other words like okay are gaining popularity in different languages and get used by many people. But as RegDwight mentions for the word okay this is a case of borrowing a word.

The word Mama or Papa are one of the easiest words that can be produced or repeated or by babies. Maybe that’s one of other reasons which has made the words being used in most of the languages around the world.

To get more information about Proto-Indo-European language visit here.

To get more information about the list of Proto-Indo-European languages visit here.

the history of the word Mother is It is most appropriate that
the word for «mother» in Proto-Indo-European originated in the
first recognizable syllable uttered by babies: ma. This syllable
was attached to a kinship suffix, -ter, which also turns up in
brother, father, and sister. The original form, mater-, later
evolved into the current words for «mother» that we now find in all
the Indo-European languages: Latin mater, Greek meter (as in
metropolis, the mother city), German Mutter, French mère, Serbian
majka, Russian mat’, materi, Italian and Spanish madre, Portuguese
mãe, Danish moder, Dutch and Afrikaans moeder, Norwegian and
Swedish mor, Icelandic móðir, Irish máthair, Hindi mataji, Gujarati
maataa, Farsi (Persian) madar, and Pashto (Afghanistan) mor. If you
are a mother, may this day be as beautiful and exciting as your
name in all these languages.