Word.ws English Dictionary

foremother

foremother noun: a female ancestor.

Noun

foremother (plural foremothers)

  1. A female ancestor.
    • “My strain has remained clearer than the rest because for countless ages my foremothers were high priestesses—the sacred office descends from mother to daughter.”1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 172
  2. (figuratively) A female predecessor, especially one of an earlier generation.
    • This compelling narrative [The Other Sappho by Ellen Fry] is a historical romance, a colorful tapestry of a time gone by in which the author has endeavored to share her version of the lives of women-identified women who were our foremothers.1990 April 28, Patricia Roth Schwartz, “The Odd Couple”, in Gay Community News, page 7

Forms of foremother

pluralforemothers

Origin of foremother

From fore- + mother.

Questions about foremother

What does foremother mean?
Foremother means a female ancestor.
What part of speech is foremother?
Foremother is a noun.
What is the plural of foremother?
The plural of foremother is foremothers.

Words near foremother in the dictionary

  1. foremonishes
  2. foremonishing
  3. foremore
  4. foremost
  5. foremostly
  6. foremother
  7. foremothers
  8. foremove
  9. foremoved
  10. foremoves
  11. foremoving

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foremother (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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