Definition of "mother" []

• A female person who is pregnant with or gives birth to a child. (noun)
• A female person whose egg unites with a sperm, resulting in the conception of a child. (noun)
• A woman who adopts a child. (noun)
• A woman who raises a child. (noun)
• A female parent of an animal. (noun)
• A female who has given birth to offspring (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• (as modifier) (noun)
• A person's own mother (noun)
• A female substituting in the function of a mother (noun)
• A term of address for an old woman (noun)
• Motherly qualities, such as maternal affection (noun)
• (in combination) (noun)
• A female or thing that creates, nurtures, protects, etc, something (noun)
• A title given to certain members of female religious orders (noun)
• God as the eternal Principle (noun)
• Native or innate (noun)
• To give birth to or produce (verb)
• To nurture, protect, etc as a mother (verb)

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• "While Suzanna didn't move from her place, she wanted to stay at some distance that she might look her soul's full at her mother -- _her mother_!"
• "It was different in Hella's case, first of all because she had such frightful cramps before it began so that her mother knew all about it without being told, and secondly because it was her _mother_."
• "But now -- now he will be taught to lie; and to hate what is good; and be brought up a Papist; and bidden to forget his mother -- his _mother_! '"