Word.ws English Dictionary

Mother Hubbard

Mother Hubbard noun: a long, wide, loose gown with long sleeves and a high neck originally introduced by Christian missionaries as an adaptation of 19th-century European fashion to Polynesia but subsequently inclusive of lighter and more colorful variations.

mother hubbard: a long, wide, loose gown with long sleeves and a high neck originally introduced by Christian...
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Noun

Mother Hubbard (plural Mother Hubbards)

  1. A long, wide, loose gown with long sleeves and a high neck originally introduced by Christian missionaries as an adaptation of 19th-century European fashion to Polynesia but subsequently inclusive of lighter and more colorful variations.
    • Her arms were like legs of mutton, her breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an impression of almost indecent nakedness, and vast chin succeeded to vast chin. I do not know how many of them there were. They fell away voluminously into the capaciousness of her bosom. She...1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 49”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    holoku

Adjective

Mother Hubbard (comparative more Mother Hubbard, superlative most Mother Hubbard)

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) Empty.
    • "Other than my earthquake kit, the cupboards are looking pretty Mother Hubbard. We can go to the Farmers Market and get some produce."2012, Cecil Castellucci, Beige, page 24
    • "It's a bit Mother Hubbard, I'm afraid.'" We made our way through the empty house.2013, Colum McCann, TransAtlantic

Synonyms of Mother Hubbard

Forms of Mother Hubbard

Noun
pluralMother Hubbards
Adjective
comparativemore Mother Hubbard
superlativemost Mother Hubbard

Origin of Mother Hubbard

From "Old Mother Hubbard", a nursery rhyme.

Words formed from Mother Hubbard

Questions about Mother Hubbard

What does Mother Hubbard mean?
Mother Hubbard means a long, wide, loose gown with long sleeves and a high neck originally introduced by Christian missionaries as an adaptation of 19th-century European fashion to Polynesia but subsequently inclusive of lighter and more colorful variations.
What part of speech is Mother Hubbard?
Mother Hubbard can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of Mother Hubbard?
The plural of Mother Hubbard is Mother Hubbards.

Words near Mother Hubbard in the dictionary

  1. mother hens
  2. mother heroine
  3. mother heroines
  4. mother hive
  5. mother hives
  6. Mother Hubbard
  7. Mother Hubbard clause
  8. Mother Hubbard clauses
  9. Mother Hubbards
  10. mother language
  11. mother languages

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Mother Hubbard (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 Hubbard.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mother_hubbard. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.