Word.ws English Dictionary

mismothering

mismothering is the present participle and gerund of mismother.

Meaning of mismother

Verb

mismother (third-person singular simple present mismothers, present participle mismothering, simple past and past participle mismothered)

  1. (especially a ewe) To fail to care for her own offspring, and/or to steal others' offspring and mother it.

Noun

mismothering (uncountable)

  1. Failure of an animal to take maternal care of its young, and/or stealing another's offspring to mother it.
    • Mismothering may occur among sheep when a lamb has been separated from the flock and returned.

Origin of mismothering

From mis- + mothering.

Questions about mismothering

What does mismothering mean?
Mismothering means failure of an animal to take maternal care of its young, and/or stealing another's offspring to mother it.
What is mismothering the present participle and gerund of?
Mismothering is the present participle and gerund of mismother.
What part of speech is mismothering?
Mismothering is a noun.

Words near mismothering in the dictionary

  1. mismolded
  2. mismolding
  3. mismolds
  4. mismother
  5. mismothered
  6. mismothering
  7. mismothers
  8. mismotion
  9. mismotivate
  10. mismotivated
  11. mismotivates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mismothering (page history and authors); mismother (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: “mismothering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mismothering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.