surrogate mother

American  

noun

• surrogate mothers
  plural

1. a person who acts in the place of another person's biological mother.

2. an animal that is given another's offspring to raise.

3. Medicine/Medical. a woman who helps a couple to have a child by carrying to term an embryo conceived by the couple and transferred to her uterus, or by being inseminated with the man's sperm and either donating the embryo for transfer to the woman's uterus or carrying it to term.

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surrogate mother British  

/ ˈsʌrəɡəsɪ /

noun

1. a woman who bears a child on behalf of a couple unable to have a child, either by artificial insemination from the man or implantation of an embryo from the woman

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• surrogacy
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• surrogate mothers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of surrogate mother

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

surrogate mother

German centre-right politician Jens Spahn has resigned as parliamentary group leader of the country's governing coalition after being accused of hypocrisy over his use of a surrogate mother in the US to have a child.

From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026

At the time, the surrogate mother contracted by Spahn was around four months pregnant with the child, according to the Bild newspaper.

From Barron's ● Jul. 18, 2026

So being a single father by choice is a rarer phenomenon, and doing so via gestational surrogacy, in which the surrogate mother bears no genetic link to the child she carries, is rarer yet.

From Slate ● Feb. 23, 2026

Owner Margarita Xatruch not only cooks for her customers, but also acts as a surrogate mother of sorts.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2025

Next to the dead surrogate mother was a young bonobo.

From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer