Mothering Sunday
Mothering Sunday proper noun: the fourth Sunday of Lent, three Sundays before Easter, now especially as a day to honor one's mother.
Proper noun
Mothering Sunday
- The fourth Sunday of Lent, three Sundays before Easter, now especially as a day to honor one's mother.
- ...on Mothering Sunday, when all the ‘servant-lads’ and ‘servant wenches’ are, in some parts of the country, set at liberty for a day, to go and see their mothers...1838, William Howitt, Rural Life in England, page 159
- Mary, it's twenty good year—twenty-one, come Mothering Sunday—'Since he was here at the farm.1880, Arthur Joseph Munby, Dorothy, page 66
Synonyms of Mothering Sunday
- Mid-Lent
- Mid-Lent Sunday
- Mothering Day
- Mother's Day
- Laetare Sunday
- Simnel Sunday
- Refection Sunday
- Rose Sunday
- Jerusalem Sunday
- Refreshment Sunday
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Origin of Mothering Sunday
From the former British custom of visiting mother churches (q.v.) at Mid-Lent, which by the English Civil War had passed on to servants receiving leave to go a-mothering, visiting and providing small gifts to their families. Revived as a national tradition in the early 20th century after the model of Mother's Day in the United States.
Questions about Mothering Sunday
- What does Mothering Sunday mean?
- Mothering Sunday means the fourth Sunday of Lent, three Sundays before Easter, now especially as a day to honor one's mother.
- What part of speech is Mothering Sunday?
- Mothering Sunday is a proper noun.
Words near Mothering Sunday in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Mothering Sunday (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: “Mothering Sunday.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mothering_sunday. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.