Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Showing results for mother ship. Search instead for smoother skin.
Synonyms

mother ship

American  

noun

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

mother ship British  

noun

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

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of mother ship

First recorded in 1885–90

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.

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

Ukraine, which has its own mother ship drones, is trying to regain the edge.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 30, 2025

On Monday, officials detailed communications between the Titan and its mother ship, the Polar Prince.

From BBC • Sep. 17, 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

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.