motherhood

Etymology

It is formed from English mother + -hood.^[2][3][4][5] The OED compares the earlier motherhead;^[2] Middle English had moderhede, used by Gower,^[6][3][5] which Etymonline dates to the mid-14th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a title of respect for a mother, with your or his: 1459, in a letter in the Paston Letters; this use died out by 1473.^[2] The sense "the state of being a mother" is recorded from before 1500, in a manuscript of Mirk's Festial.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline dates the word only to the 1590s, in the sense "the state or fact of being a mother",^[3] and the Shorter Oxford to the late 16th century, in the sense "motherly feeling".^[4] That sense, recorded from 1593 in Nashe, is now rare.^[2][4] The word has been used figuratively since 1623, and for mothers collectively since 1835.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as the office or character of a mother.^[7] In the 1880s it briefly meant a clan formed by kinship through the mother, in anthropology.^[2][4] In the 1970s, chiefly in North America, it came to stand for something so plainly good that no one questions it: motherhood issue and motherhood statement (1973) for an uncontroversial or bland issue or statement,^[2][4] and motherhood and apple pie (1976) for something beyond criticism, often used ironically.^[2][4]

Timeline

• mid-14th century – Middle English moderhede.^[3]
• 1459 – a title of respect for a mother (obsolete by 1473).^[2]
• before 1500 – the state of being a mother.^[2]
• 1593 – motherly feeling or care.^[2][4]
• 1623 – figurative use.^[2]
• 1835 – mothers collectively.^[2]
• 1884 – in anthropology, a clan traced through the mother (obsolete).^[2]
• 1973 – adjective, uncontroversial, as in motherhood issue.^[2]
• 1976 – motherhood and apple pie.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The state of being a mother; maternity: She found motherhood harder than her career.^[8][9][2]
2. The qualities, feelings or care of a mother.^[9][2]
3. Mothers as a group.^[9][2]
4. motherhood and apple pie: something regarded as so plainly good that it is beyond criticism, often used ironically.^[4][2]

Adjective

1. Chiefly North American: of an issue or statement, so widely favoured as to be uncontroversial, or bland: a motherhood statement.^[2][4]

Related words

• mother
• motherhead
• fatherhood

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt