Mama

//ˈmɑmə// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Mother, female parent. Canada, US, childish, familiar, usually

    "All the flowers that you planted, mama, in the backyard / All died when you went away"

  2. 2
    informal terms for a mother wordnet

Example

More examples

"Mama! That lady and man are holding hands, they're great friends aren't they!"

Etymology

Originally from baby talk. Possibly influenced by Middle English mome (“mother, aunt”), from Old English *mōme, from Proto-West Germanic *mōmā, from Proto-Germanic *mōmǭ (“mother, aunt”), from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂-méh₂, reduplication of *méh₂- (“mother”), related to German Muhme (“aunt”), Latin mamma (“mother, nurse”), Irish mam (“mother”), Lithuanian mama, moma (“mother”).

Related phrases

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