mother church
Americannoun
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a church from which other churches have had their origin or derived their authority.
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a cathedral or a metropolitan church.
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the church attended in one's youth or for the greater part of one's life.
Etymology
Origin of mother church
Middle English word dating back to 1275–1325
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.
Its survival and growth since the forcible closure of its Beijing mother church in 2018 only adds embarrassment to alarm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 20, 2025
The British monarch is head of the Church of England, the mother church of global Anglicanism.
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2025
The long ago protest led to the founding of the first Black denomination in the United States, which Murray described as “the mother church of Black America.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2024
Dean Monteith took up the role a year ago in Canterbury, which he described as the mother church for 80 million Anglicans.
From BBC ● Dec. 20, 2023
We lived at that time in the parish of St. Helen's, in which is the mother church of Worcester, which had a peal of eight bells.
From The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, No. 161, May 1904 by Various
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.
