mother

1 noun (C)

1 PARENT a female parent of a child or animal: His mother and father are both doctors. | Can I borrow your car please, Mother? | mother hen/cat/dog etc (=an animal that is a mother)

2 be (like) a mother to to care for someone as if you were their mother

3 mother's boy BrE, mama's boy AmE a man or boy who allows his mother to protect him too much and is considered weak

4 mother hen someone who tries to protect her children too much and worries about them all the time

5 learn/be taught sth at your mother's knee to learn something as a very young child: She had learned to flirt at her mother's knee.

6 BIG spoken especially AmE something very large and usually very good: a real mother of a car

7 SLANG AmE taboo spoken motherfucker

8 every mother's son old-fashioned an expression meaning every man, used for emphasis: I'd jail every mother's son of them.

9 Mother

a) used to address the woman who is head of a convent

b) old use used by a man to address an old woman

10 the mother of

a) the origin or cause of something: Westminster is known as `the mother of parliaments'.

b) informal a very bad or severe type of something: I woke up with the mother of all hangovers.

2 verb (T) to look after and protect someone as if you were their mother, especially by being too kind and doing everything for them: Tom was constantly mothered by his wife, and resented it.