mother of

Idioms  

1. The best or greatest of a type, as in That was the mother of all tennis matches. This expression originated during the Gulf War as a translation of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's term umm al-ma'arik, for “major battle”; the Arabic “mother of” is a figure of speech for “major” or “best.” It was quickly adopted and applied to just about any person, event, or activity. [Slang; late 1980s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mother of

But the 45-year-old mother of twins, who attend L.A. public schools, is more policy wonk in temperament.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2026

Loveless, who has since died, is the mother of Meghan Markle's two half-siblings.

From BBC ● Oct. 29, 2026

Latinos long respected Huerta’s career but didn’t truly embrace her until her señora era, when she became our collective matriarch, in addition to the mother of 14 children.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026

Late Monday, dozens of people, including the mother of a Novi Sad disaster victim, stormed Informer's premises and disrupted its broadcast.

From Barron's ● Oct. 27, 2026

After dropping off one group of marchers at Brown Chapel that evening, Viola Liuzzo, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of five from Detroit, headed back toward Montgomery to pick up another group.

From "Because They Marched" by Russell Freedman

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