motherless
Britishadjective
adverb
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And while Anglo-American lullabies are typically written in major keys, Gershwin chose a minor one—evoking the depth and dignity of such African-American spirituals as “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 5, 2025
Motherless children can attend special summer camps, for instance, or Mother’s Day retreats like those hosted by the Massachusetts-based non-profit EmpowerHer, which works with girls whose mothers have died.
From Seattle Times • May 10, 2023
Between the two, the spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is deconstructed through a series of variations in which the theme never returns, and the ending is denied a clean resolution.
From New York Times • Mar. 2, 2021
TCM Motherless Brooklyn Edward Norton wrote, directed and starred in this 2019 drama as an eccentric detective with Tourette’s syndrome in 1950s New York.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 1, 2021
He has on The Poor Motherless Girl Look—all adults get it at some point when they talk to me, like I’m doomed, shoved out of the airplane without a parachute because mothers are the parachutes.
From "I'll Give You the Sun" by Jandy Nelson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
