mother

noun

• 1a woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth: he was visiting his mother a mother of three
• a female animal in relation to its offspring: [as modifier]:a mother penguin
• archaic (especially as a form of address) an elderly woman.
• [as modifier] denoting an institution or organization from which others of the same type derive:the initiatives were based on the experience of the mother company
• informal an extreme example or very large specimen of something:I got stuck in the mother of all traffic jams

• 2 (Mother, Mother Superior, or Reverend Mother) (especially as a title or form of address) the head of a female religious community.

• 3 vulgar slang, chiefly North Americanshort for motherfucker.

verb

• 1 (often as noun mothering) bring up (a child) with care and affection:the art of mothering
• look after (someone) kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so:she mothered her husband, insisting he should take cod liver oil in the winter

• 2 dated give birth to: her declining years had tricked her into believing she’d mothered another son of God