Word.ws English Dictionary

mother churches

mother churches is the plural of mother church.

Meaning of mother church

Noun

mother church (plural mother churches)

  1. The Church regarded as nourishing and protecting its members.
    • Catholics regard Mary as Mother of the Church but an all-male hierarchy as the Mother Church.
  2. A church with oversight over another or others, now especially a cathedral or metropolitan church.
    • Mothering Sunday arose from the custom of visiting mother churches at Mid-Lent, rather than the usual parish church.
  3. The original church of a denomination, regarded as having birthed the others.
    • The mother church of Christian Scientists is in Boston, Massachusetts.
  4. The original denomination or community of believers from which other denominations and communities of believers sprang.
    • The Church of England is the mother church of Anglicans around the world.

Questions about mother churches

What is mother churches the plural of?
Mother churches is the plural of mother church.

Words near mother churches in the dictionary

  1. mother cell
  2. Mother Christmas
  3. Mother Christmases
  4. Mother Christmasses
  5. mother church
  6. mother churches
  7. mother cities
  8. mother city
  9. mother countries
  10. mother country
  11. mother dough

Source and license

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