mater

Pronunciation

• IPA (Classical): [ˈmaː.tɛr]^[1]
• IPA (Ecclesiastical): [ˈmaː.ter]^[1]

Forms

māter f (genitive mātris); third declension^[1] Inscriptions have a dative matre and a dative plural matris and matrabus.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *mātēr, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr (“mother”).^[3][1][4] De Vaan takes the Indo-European word as a derivative in *-ter- of the nursery form *ma “mum”, realised as *méh₂- with a long vowel, and calls the root etymology uncertain.^[3] Cognate with Faliscan mate, Oscan maatreís and Umbrian matres, with Sanskrit मातृ (mātár-), Avestan mātar-, Ancient Greek μήτηρ (mḗtēr), Armenian մայր (mayr), Albanian motër (“sister”), Lithuanian mótė, Old Church Slavonic мати (mati), Old High German muoter, Old English mōdor, Old Irish máithir and Tocharian B mācer, all “mother”.^[3][5][6] Mātertera “maternal aunt” contains the comparative suffix *-tero-, “she who is like a mother”, and māteria “matter, timber” is a derivative.^[3] Verrius Flaccus, as Festus reports, connected it with mātūrus “ripe, good”, and Isidore of Seville explained it as “matter” (materia), since the father is the cause.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Livius Andronicus onwards,^[3][7] in whose Odyssey many suitors came to woo the hero's mother.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Beyond the mother, it meant the mistress of a household (mater familias), in the plural married women or matrons, and poetically motherly feeling.^[5] It was a foster-mother or nurse, as in Plautus' twins whose nurse could not tell them apart, a respectful address to old women, a title of the senior woman of a society or of the camp (mater castrorum), and mater patriae for an empress.^[5] Goddesses bore it as a title, above all Cybele, the Mater deum or Magna Mater.^[5]

Of animals it was the dam, of plants the parent stock, and the earth was the mother of all living things.^[5] Figuratively it was the motherland, the mother city of a colony, and the source of a thing, as in “folly is the mother of all evils”.^[5][2] Medieval Latin used it for an abbess and in mater ecclesia for the cathedral or the mother church of a parish, and vetus mater was Eve.^[8][7] All Romance languages keep it, as Italian and Spanish madre, French mère and Portuguese mãe,^[1] and English mater is a borrowing.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 280–200 BC – Livius Andronicus uses it of Odysseus' mother.^[5][7]
• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it of a nurse and as an address to an old woman.^[5][7]
• 220–130 BC – Pacuvius calls the earth a mother.^[5][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero calls philosophy the mother of all good deeds.^[5][7]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of the motherland and of a parent tree.^[5][7]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus reports the proposed title mater patriae.^[5][7]
• 540–604 AD – Gregory the Great has a medieval sense.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mother, as in mater familias, the mistress of a household, and in the plural matrons.^[5][2]
2. A foster-mother, a nurse.^[5][2]
3. A respectful address to an old woman, a title of the senior woman of a society, and mater patriae, a title of an empress.^[5]
4. A title of goddesses, especially Cybele.^[5]
5. The dam of an animal; the parent stock of a plant; the earth as mother of all.^[5]
6. The motherland; a mother city, a metropolis.^[5][2]
7. A source, an origin.^[5][2]
8. (Medieval Latin) An abbess, and mater ecclesia, a cathedral or mother church.^[8][7]

Word family

• bimāter
• commāter
• māterfamiliās
• mātercula
• māteria
• māternus
• mātertera
• mātrastra
• mātrātus
• mātrēscō
• mātricīda
• mātrimōnium

Related words

• māternitās
• mātrīcālis
• mātricīdium
• mātrīcula
• mātrīculārius
• mātrimōniālis
• mātrimus
• mātrōnālis
• mātrōnātus
• mamma
• pater
• English mother
• English maternal
• English matter

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill