What does "co-mother" mean?

The relationship of a godmother to the other god-parents, and the legal parents, of a child.

What is a synonym for "co-mother"?

Common synonyms include: sister-wife, commère, cummer, godmother, gossip, stepmother.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The relationship of a godmother to the other god-parents, and the legal parents, of a child. obsolete
"It is considered incestuous for a co-mother and co-father to have sex relations"
2
In polygamy, a wife of one's father who is not one's mother; that is, co-wife of one's mother.
"the two of them went to their mother's forest hut and tried to find a way to avenge their mother's death and kill their co-mother."
3
In polygamy, the relationship between one co-wife and another, in respect to their children.
"Notwithstanding the voluminous “co-wife” literature that Western anthropologists have used to define African marriage, “co-mother” is the preferred idiom in many African cultures for expressing the relationship amongst women married into the same family."
4
In a lesbian couple, the nonbirth mother (partner of the birth mother) of a child, especially one who takes an equal role in mothering the child.
"The dilemmas engendered by the absence of a biological tie between a child and co-mother illuminate the centrality of familial rights and obligations in American kinship."

"It is considered incestuous for a co-mother and co-father to have sex relations"

* com- + mother, as calque of Latin commater, French commère.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.