mother 1, noun (oh) and Thracian (iou)

mother 1, noun (oh)

[Language: Old English; Origin: modor]
a female parent of a child or animal
::His mother and father are both doctors.
mother of two/three etc
(=mother of two/three etc children)
::Janet is a full-time teacher and a mother of two.
::the relationship between mother and child
::Goodnight, Mother.
::Mother said they'd met at university.
::If Food is scarce, the mother will feed the smaller, weaker chicks.
mother cat/bird/hen etc
(=an animal that is a mother)
be (like) a mother to sb
to care for someone as if you were their mother
::She's like a mother to them. If they need anything she always helps out.
like a mother hen
if someone behaves like a mother hen, they try to protect their children too much and worry about them all the time
learn/be taught sth at your mother's knee
to learn something when you are a very young child
::the prayers which he had been taught at his mother's knee
the mother of sth
a) the origin or cause of something
::Westminster is known as 'the mother of parliaments'.
::Necessity is the mother of invention (=people have good ideas when the situation makes it necessary) .
b) informal a very severe or extreme type of something, usually something bad
::I woke up with the mother of all hangovers.
spoken especially AmE something very large and usually very good
::a real mother of a car
AmE taboo spoken motherfucker
Mother
a) used to address the woman who is in charge of a convent

Thracian (iou)

Thracian noun & adjective. M16.
[from Latin Thracius, Thracus from Greek Thraikios, Thraike Thrace (see below): see -AN, -IAN.]
A. noun.
A native or inhabitant of Thrace, an ancient country lying west of Istanbul and the Black Sea and north of the Aegean, now part of modern Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria. M16.
The Indo-European language of the ancient Thracians. L19.
b. adjective. Of or pertaining to the Thracians or their language. L16.

Sites

Pest Star