Word.ws English Dictionary

maternalism

maternalism noun: the treatment of people in a motherly manner, especially by caring for them as a mother would care for her children.

Noun

maternalism (countable and uncountable, plural maternalisms)

  1. The treatment of people in a motherly manner, especially by caring for them as a mother would care for her children.
    Synonyms:
    motherliness

Synonyms of maternalism

Forms of maternalism

pluralmaternalisms

Origin of maternalism

From maternal + -ism.

Questions about maternalism

What does maternalism mean?
Maternalism means the treatment of people in a motherly manner, especially by caring for them as a mother would care for her children.
What part of speech is maternalism?
Maternalism is a noun.
What is the plural of maternalism?
The plural of maternalism is maternalisms.

Words near maternalism in the dictionary

  1. maternalisation
  2. maternalise
  3. maternalised
  4. maternalises
  5. maternalising
  6. maternalism
  7. maternalisms
  8. maternalist
  9. maternalistic
  10. maternalistically
  11. maternalists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: maternalism (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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Cite this entry: “maternalism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/maternalism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.