What does "housemother" mean?

The mother of a family; the female head of household, or of any collection of persons living as a family or in common, as in a primitive community.

What is a synonym for "housemother"?

Common synonyms include: nanny, nanny.

Pronounced //haʊsˈmʌðə(ɹ)//.

//haʊsˈmʌðə(ɹ)// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
The mother of a family; the female head of household, or of any collection of persons living as a family or in common, as in a primitive community.
"At length, the aged house-mother died, or rather slept away into the other world, without pain or sickness, from absolute decay; leaving her solitary partner to mourn her loss, and with an unfeigned longing to join her in the grave."
2
a woman employed as a chaperon in a residence for young people wordnet
3
A woman in charge of a residence for young people to look after them.

"The housemother here makes some really good food."

From house + mother. First use appears c. 1822. See cite below.

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