housemother
UK/haʊsˈmʌðə(ɹ)/US/hʌʊsˈmʌðɚ/
housemother noun: 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.
Noun
housemother (plural housemothers)
- 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.1822, Purvis and Co. (publisher), The Literary Melange; Or, Weekly Register of Literature and the Arts, page 264
- A woman in charge of a residence for young people to look after them.
Forms of housemother
| plural | housemothers |
|---|
Origin of housemother
From house + mother. First use appears c. 1822. See cite below.
Words formed from housemother
Questions about housemother
- What does housemother mean?
- Housemother means 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 part of speech is housemother?
- Housemother is a noun.
- How do you pronounce housemother?
- Housemother is pronounced /haʊsˈmʌðə(ɹ)/ (UK).
- What is the plural of housemother?
- The plural of housemother is housemothers.
Words near housemother in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: housemother (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “housemother.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/housemother. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.