mother ship

American  

noun

1. a vessel or craft that services others operating far from a home port or center.

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mother ship British  

noun

1. a ship providing facilities and supplies for a number of small vessels

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Etymology

Origin of mother ship

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

What’s Next: The restart of commercial missions with a mother ship and two Delta spaceships opens up the potential for $450 million in annual revenue across 125 flights, analysts at Jefferies said.

From Barron's • Apr. 7, 2026

Companies sell decoys, which trail planes or ships, sometimes looking like a missile, and emit signals to confuse adversaries into targeting it instead of its mother ship.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 7, 2026

A sprawling search and rescue mission involving four governments unfolded after the submersible lost contact with its mother ship, the Polar Prince, on the morning of 18 June 2023 and never resurfaced.

From BBC • Sep. 16, 2024

The size and waterfront location, she added, make AltaSea “a unicorn piece of property that is basically made to be the mother ship for the blue economy.”

From Los Angeles Times • May 27, 2024

Then you would launch a smaller manned spacecraft from that mother ship, and the smaller craft would fly to the moon.

From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson

Related Words

• bellwether
• crown jewel