MOTHER´S VOCABULARY

Mother’s milk, mother wit, and other words containing ‘mother’

This Sunday we celebrate Mother’s Day, also known as Mothering Sunday, in the UK: that day of the year on which mothers are particularly honoured by their children. In North America and South Africa, Mother’s Day is on the second Sunday in May instead.

According to A Dictionary of English Folklore, Mother’s Day as we know it was created almost single-handedly by Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia who persuaded Congress, in 1913, that the second Sunday in May should be dedicated to honouring mothers and motherhood.

The concept was brought to Britain by American soldiers during the Second World War, and was later taken up by commercial interests, becoming extremely popular from the 1950s onwards. In Britain, however, the day chosen for Mother’s Day was the fourth Sunday in Lent, previously the traditional day for Mothering Sunday, which Mother’s Day in effect replaced. The day had initially very little to do with honouring one’s mother, but wasabout the principal church of the area, called the mother church.

Mother itself is inherited from Germanic and was probably originally a derivative (with suffixation) of a nursery word of the ma type. The noun is part of many English compounds – you can find a selection of words containingmother and their definitions below.

Mother-bomb

A canister containing a cluster of explosive devices.

Mother Bunch

A stout, untidy, or awkward-looking woman or girl.

Mother Carey’s chicken

Old-fashioned term for storm petrel.

Mothercraft

Skill in or knowledge of looking after children as a mother.

Mother goddess

A mother-figure deity, a central figure of many early nature cults where maintenance of fertility was of prime religious importance. Examples of such goddesses include Isis, Astarte, Cybele, and Demeter.

Mother Goose

The fictitious creator of a collection of nursery rhymes that was first published in London in the 1760s.

Mother hen

A person who sees to the needs of others, especially in a fussy or interfering way.

Mother house

The founding house of a religious order.

Mother Hubbard

A woman’s long, loose-fitting, shapeless dress or undergarment. So named from early illustrations of the nursery rhyme.

Mother imago

The mental or realized image of an idealized or archetypal mother.

Mother-in-law’s tongue

A West African plant of the agave family, which has long slender leaves with yellow marginal stripes.

Mother Midnight

(A name for) a midwife; (also, occasionally) a bawd. Now historical.

Mother-naked

Completely naked.

Mother of God

A name given to the Virgin Mary (as mother of the divine Christ).

Mother-of-pearl

A smooth shining iridescent substance forming the inner layer of the shell of some molluscs, especially oysters and abalones, used in ornamentation.

Mother of States

A nickname for the state of Virginia.

Mother’s help

A person who helps a mother, mainly by looking after children.

Mother Shipton

A day-flying European moth with a marking on the wing that is said to resemble the crone-like profile of a legendary English seer.

Mother’s milk

Something regarded as absolutely necessary or appropriate.

Mother’s ruin

Gin.

Mother Superior

The head of a female religious community.

Mother wit

Natural ability to cope with everyday matters; common sense.

Refrigerator mother

A mother considered to be cold and unloving towards her child or children. Such mothers were formerly believed to contribute to the development of autism in their children. Leo Kanner (1894–1981), who is associated with this theory, does not appear to have used the expression in print.

Tiger mother

A strict or demanding mother who pushes her children to high levels of achievement, using methods regarded as typical of childrearing in China and other parts of East Asia.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/03/mothers-day/

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