mother, n.2
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈmʌðə/, U.S. /ˈməðər/
Forms: 15– mother, 18– muther Eng. regional; also Sc. pre-17 moder.
Etymology:Probably < mother n.1; compare Middle Dutch moeder, moer (Dutch moer), Middle Low German mōder (German regional (Low German) Moder), German Mutter, all identical in form and gender with the equivalent of mother n.1
Probably originally a spec. application of mother n.1 Outside Germanic comparable usage may be seen in a number of Romance languages, as post-classical Latin mater lees, dregs (13th cent. in British sources), Old French, Middle French mere lees of wine (1260; French mère lees, dregs, scum: now chiefly regional except in phrase mère de vinaigre mother of vinegar (1767; compare Middle Dutch moeder van den aysine, German Essigmutter (17th cent.))), Italian madre mother of oil (1611 in Florio), Spanish madre scum of liquids, sediment in wine (1763; 1721 in phrase madre del vino). The transition of sense is difficult to explain; but most probably the scum or dregs of distilled waters and the like was regarded as being a portion of the ‘mother’ or original crude substance which had remained mixed with the refined product, from which in course of time it separated itself. (The term may possibly have belonged originally to the vocabulary of alchemy.) An explanation sometimes given, that ‘mother of vinegar’ was so called on account of its effect in promoting acetous fermentation, does not agree with the history of the use. It has been pointed out that ancient Greek γραῦς old woman, is used in the sense ‘scum, as of boiled milk’, but the coincidence is probably accidental.
An alternative etymology regards the word (with its Germanic equivalents) as an alteration, by folk etymology, of Middle Dutch modder mud, mire (compare the rare variant moeder, occurring chiefly in derivatives: see also German cognates cited s.v. mud n.1). This connection was apparently first made by Kiliaan in his early modern Dutch dictionary of 1599, which contains the two following entries: (1) ‘Modder, moder, moyer, more, moer, limus, cœnum mollius, lutum, volutabrum; Ang. mire, mudde’; and (2) ‘Modder, moeyer, moeder, grondsoppe, fæx, fæces, crassamen, crassamentum; Ang. mother’. According to this theory the Romance parallels cited above must be regarded as calques. However, there is no evidence that Middle Dutch, Dutch modder was or is ever used in the sense ‘dregs, scum’, nor is this sense recorded for any of the German cognates.
In sense 1 the 16th-cent. use relating to oil is after classical Latin amurca lees of oil (see amurcous adj.).
1. Dregs, sediment; scum; mould; esp. the lees or sediment of wine; the scum rising to the surface of fermenting liquors. Formerly also (in 16th cent.): the dregs or scum of oil. Eng. regional in later use.
c1485 (1456) G. Hay Bk. Knychthede (1914) 140 Claret wyne..clere but the moder scailde.
1538 T. Elyot Dict., Amurca, the mother or foam of all oyles.
1563 T. Hill Arte Gardening (1593) 31 The new mother or fome of oyle.
1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry ii. f. 69, Powre into a platter, the thickest mother of oyle [L. amurca].
1600 R. Surflet tr. C. Estienne & J. Liébault Maison Rustique iii. xlix. 529 Else your cyder will..growe couered with much white mother swimming aloft.
1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. 159 The mother or lees of oile oliue [Fr. la lye d'huyle d'oliue; L. amurca].
1609 C. Butler Feminine Monarchie x. sig. L5, The Meth in time wilbe covered with a mother.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues, Fleur du vin, the mother of wine; the white, or mouldie spots that float on the top of old wine.
1626 Bacon Sylva Sylvarum §339 If the Body be liquid and not apt to putrefie totally, it will cast up a Mother in the Top; As the Mothers of Distilled Waters.
1814 H. F. Cary tr. Dante Paradiso xii. 106 That, mouldy mother is, where late were lees.
1870 A. Henfrey & M. T. Masters Elem. Course Bot. (ed. 2) 454 Distribution [of filamentous Fungi or ‘Moulds’]. Universal,..occurring constantly in infusions of organic matter..as ‘mother’, producing various fermentations.
1893 in H. T. Cozens-Hardy Broad Norfolk (Eastern Daily Press) 53 Mother appears on pickles and jams as a sort of whiteness on the top when fermentation has set in.
1923 E. Gepp Essex Dial. Dict. (ed. 2) 78 Mother..is scum, mould.
2. spec = mother of vinegar n. at Compounds 1
1682 N. Grew Anat. Plants iv. i. vi. 158 The Cuticular and other Concretions, commonly called Mothers, in Distill'd Waters, Vinegar, and other Liquors.
1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 460 The slimy sediment of vinegar casks called mother.
1870 J. R. Lowell My Study Windows (1871) 95 Unhappily the bit of mother from Swift's vinegar-barrel has had strength enough to sour all the rest [of Carlyle].
1974 Times 16 Nov. 11/1 Obtaining a culture or ‘vinegar mother’ can only be done on a person-to-person basis... Once the ‘mother’ is in its crock or jar, it is only necessary to keep it covered with wine.
1994 Daily Tel. 26 Feb. (Weekend Suppl.) 10/8 Should you wish to grow your own mother, here's how.
Compounds
(in phrasal combinations with of). C1.
†mother of grapes n. (also mother of the grape, mother of the grapes) Obs. the solid mass of skins, etc., left after wine-grapes have been pressed; = marc n. 1.
1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues, Espeé,..a certaine round staffe, that lies betweene the vpper boords of a Vinepresse, and the mother, or substance of the grapes.
1694 P. A. Motteux tr. Rabelais 5th Bk. Wks. v. vii, For fear there should still lurk some Juice among the Husks, and Hullings, in the Mother of the Grape.
1725 R. Bradley Chomel's Dict. Œcon. at Vinegar, To make strong Vinegar, dry the Mother of Grapes for the space of two Days.
mother of vinegar n. a ropy slime which forms on the surface of alcoholic liquids during acetogenic fermentation and is used to initiate such fermentation in other alcoholic liquids; (also) the organism which produces this slime, which is a bacterium of the genus Acetobacter (formerly thought to be a fungus).
1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. xxviii. xvi. 334 A pultesse made of beasts dung & the mother of vinegre [Fr. avec de lye de vinaigre; L. cum aceti faece] tempered together.
1849 De Bow's Rev. Oct. 344 [It] underwent a regular fermentation, developing those albumenous clouds, like the ‘mother of vinegar’, and presented sufficient characters to prove it to be of animal origin.
1879 Encycl. Brit. IX. 98/2 Mother of vinegar..is the ‘non-aerobiotic’ form of the mycoderma.
1937 Discovery Sept. 282/1 ‘Mother’ of vinegar, that jelly-like mass often seen in a bottle, is the vinegar bacterium itself, of a type known as xylinum.
2000 Guardian 18 Mar. (Weekend Suppl.) 77/1 Barrels filled with good wine and good vinegar..plus a bacteria-rich slime called mother of vinegar.
C2. In the names of minerals.
mother of gold n. [apparently after Spanish madre del oro (see quot. 1596 at mother n.1 3d)] a rock or mineral supposed to indicate the presence of gold.
1596 W. Raleigh Discov. Guiana To Rdr., In Guiana..the rocks..are in effect thorow-shining..which being tried to be no Marcasite..but are no other then El[sic]madre del oro..the mother of golde, or as it is saide by others the scum of golde.
1712 E. Cooke Voy. S. Sea 26, I am of Opinion there is also Gold in the Island because we took up the Mother of Gold in several places by the Water-side.
1860 Harper's Mag. Apr. 610/2 Savans have at last been compelled to admit that ‘quartz is the mother of gold’.
1922 V. Hemphill Down Mother Lode Foreword, It was the haunt of Harte, and Twain, and Canfield in the north; it was the bank of such men as Hopkins, Crocker, Huntington and Stanford; the foundation of one of the greatest states in the Union, the Mother Lode, the Mother of Gold!
†mother of the mine n. Obs. a kind of iron ore consisting largely of clay
a1728 J. Woodward Attempt Nat. Hist. Fossils Eng. (1729) i. 232 Clayey Iron-Ore... The Miners call it the Mother of the Mine.
1794 W. Hutchinson Catal. Animals in Hist. Cumberland I. 52 Bole; this is..called by the country people clayey iron ore, rud and smit... Miners call it mother of the mine.
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