資料來源 : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Mother \Moth"er\, n. [OE. moder, AS. m[=o]dor; akin to D.
moeder, OS. m[=o]dar, G. mutter, OHG. muotar, Icel.
m[=o][eth]ir, Dan. & Sw. moder, OSlav. mati, Russ. mate, Ir.
& Gael. mathair, L. mater, Gr. mh`thr, Skr. m[=a]t[.r]; cf.
Skr. m[=a] to measure. [root]268. Cf. {Material}, {Matrix},
{Metropolis}, {Father}.]
1. A female parent; especially, one of the human race; a
woman who has borne a child.
2. That which has produced or nurtured anything; source of
birth or origin; generatrix.
Alas! poor country! . . . it can not Be called our
mother, but our grave. --Shak.
I behold . . . the solitary majesty of Crete, mother
of a religion, it is said, that lived two thousand
years. --Landor.
3. An old woman or matron. [Familiar]
4. The female superior or head of a religious house, as an
abbess, etc.
5. Hysterical passion; hysteria. [Obs.] --Shak.
{Mother Carey's chicken} (Zo["o]l.), any one of several
species of small petrels, as the stormy petrel
({Procellaria pelagica}), and Leach's petrel ({Oceanodroma
leucorhoa}), both of the Atlantic, and {O. furcata} of the
North Pacific.
{Mother Carey's goose} (Zo["o]l.), the giant fulmar of the
Pacific. See {Fulmar}.
{Mother's mark} (Med.), a congenital mark upon the body; a
n[ae]vus.