noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The treatment of people in a motherly manner, especially by caring for them as a mother would care for her children. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   motherly care; behavior characteristic of a mother; the practice of acting as a mother does toward her children wordnet
3. 3
   the quality of having or showing the tenderness and warmth and affection of or befitting a mother wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

motherlinessmotherlinessmaternal qualitymaternity

Etymology

From maternal + -ism.

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