Word.ws English Dictionary

refrigerator mothers

refrigerator mothers is the plural of refrigerator mother.

Meaning of refrigerator mother

Noun

refrigerator mother (plural refrigerator mothers)

  1. (dated, derogatory, idiomatic) An emotionally frigid mother, who does not exhibit normal care or love for her child or children.
    • It was not until 1943 that Dr. Leo Kanner, an American pschiatrist, first diagnosed the syndrome in 11 children. . . . Kanner and others once postulated that these children were the products of "refrigerator mothers," women who are overly cold and intellectual.1979 April 7, Helen Kohl, “The Strange Ones" Autism can be brought into our world”, in Montreal Gazette, Canada, retrieved 18 Nov 2012

Questions about refrigerator mothers

What is refrigerator mothers the plural of?
Refrigerator mothers is the plural of refrigerator mother.

Words near refrigerator mothers in the dictionary

  1. refrigerator magnet
  2. refrigerator magnets
  3. refrigerator mom
  4. refrigerator moms
  5. refrigerator mother
  6. refrigerator mothers
  7. refrigerator pie
  8. refrigerator pies
  9. refrigerator truck
  10. refrigerator trucks
  11. refrigerator-freezer

Source and license

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