noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Failure of an animal to take maternal care of its young, and/or stealing another's offspring to mother it. uncountable

   "Mismothering may occur among sheep when a lamb has been separated from the flock and returned."

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of mismother form-of, gerund, participle, present

Example

More examples

"Mismothering may occur among sheep when a lamb has been separated from the flock and returned."

Etymology

From mis- + mothering.

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