Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use motherly in a sentence

12 example sentences · adjective, adverb

Motherly means befitting a mother; warm, caring, nurturing, protective, loving. Example: ““It’s going to be fine,” Mother said in her soothing motherly voice.”

More sentences with motherly

  • “It’s going to be fine,” Mother said in her soothing motherly voice.2021, Josh Carrott, “Qingdao”, in Once upon a Time in Carrotland: My YouTube Autobiography Which I Definitely Wrote All Of, [Portsmouth…. From the entry squishy
  • She was mid-fifties, a well built woman, motherly in appearance but keen-eyed, culturedly businesslike in manner.2006, Geoff Mallinson, chapter 24, in The Random Shafts of Time, Penzance, Cornwall: United Writers Publications Ltd, →ISBN, page 257. From the entry culturedly
  • She was very motherly towards me then and it was beaut.1978, Kevin Gilbert, Living Black: Blacks Talk to Kevin Gilbert. From the entry beaut
  • She also discusses the desirability of a "mother house," a fosterhome placement with an analyzed motherly person.1959, John Frosch, The Annual Survey of Psychoanalysis - Volume 5, page 545. From the entry fosterhome
  • As her adopted uncle, I was giving a little fatherly as well as motherly and unclely advice.1905, Anthony E. Wills, All Charley's fault. From the entry unclely
  • These watched me from behind motherly, widehearted and warm.2021, Heike Thieme, Book of Visions: Books of Wisdom, page 137. From the entry widehearted
  • Gentle as a sheep—and no more capable of running that big, expensive plant than a motherly old ewe.1915, Basil King, chapter 3, in The Side Of The Angels. From the entry dunderhead
  • Macdonald's wife was an immensely stout, raven-haired, sloe-eyed, talkative body, the most motherly woman I have ever known.1903, Joseph Conrad, F. M. Hueffer, Romance. From the entry sloe-eyed
  • A motherly woman lived there with her son, Luigi, a gay young man with an olive-oily skin, glistening teeth and a rubbery smile.1952, Paul Brickhill, “The Man who Would Not Die”, in Escape—or Die: Authentic Stories of the R.A.F. Escaping Society, London: Pan Books…. From the entry luigi
  • When they told her about the robin and the first flight of the young ones she laughed a motherly little mellow laugh in her throat.1910 November – 1911 August, Frances Hodgson Burnett, “‘It’s Mother!’”, in The Secret Garden, New York, N.Y.: Frederick A[bbott] Stokes…. From the entry mellow
  • Cloward oversees a few brown shirts, and the motherly Dixie Lambert, who runs the office, handles dispatch and generally keeps the rest of the staff in line.2013, C. B. Bernard, Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now, →ISBN, page 233. From the entry brown shirt
  • One of the current melodrama uses on the hoardings a four-sheet poster showing the picture of a motherly old woman with a baby in her arms.1900, Fame, page 472. From the entry piping times

Meaning of motherly

  1. adjective Befitting a mother; warm, caring, nurturing, protective, loving.
  2. adverb In a way pertaining to, befitting, or of a mother.

Full definition of motherly

Questions about motherly in a sentence

How do you use motherly in a sentence?
Motherly is used as an adjective and adverb. For example: ““It’s going to be fine,” Mother said in her soothing motherly voice.”
What is a short sentence with motherly?
“These watched me from behind motherly, widehearted and warm.”
What does motherly mean?
Motherly means befitting a mother; warm, caring, nurturing, protective, loving.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: motherly (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use motherly in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/motherly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.