surrogate mother

American  

noun

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

• surrogacy noun

Etymology

Origin of surrogate mother

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

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

Chloe Dalton tried to prove the Roman writer wrong when she became a surrogate mother to a baby hare she discovered outside her house in rural England.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 3, 2025

After years following the BioRescue Project, Jon A. Juárez witnessed a breakthrough in rhino conservation, the first successful transfer of a rhino embryo to a surrogate mother.

From BBC • Oct. 14, 2025

“Oh, it’s so nice you have a surrogate mother in L.A.,” my own mother would often say of Loraine when she visited from the East Coast.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 21, 2024

Next to the dead surrogate mother was a young bonobo.

From "Endangered" by Eliot Schrefer