mama
UK /ˈmæmə/ · US /ˈmɑmə/ noun, interjection, verb, proper noun
Forms mamas mamaing mamaed mamma momma mumma
- noun (now chiefly Canada, US, often childish) Synonym of mother (“a female parent”). “I love the cookies which mama bakes me every week.”
- noun (figurative) Synonym of mother (“an origin, a source”).
- noun (obsolete) Used preceding a name as a title for a mother.
- noun (LGBTQ slang) A lesbian partner.
- noun (Caribbean, US (originally African-American Vernacular), informal) Used as a (respectful) term of address for a woman, especially an older one.
- noun A girlfriend.
- noun A wife. “I need to talk to mama before I buy the car.”
- noun A woman regarded as sexually attractive or (derogatory) promiscuous. “Whoa, that chick in the bikini is a real mama!”
- interjection (Caribbean, US) Often preceded by oh: used to express approval, joy, surprise, etc.
- verb Synonym of mother (“to treat (someone) as a mother would be expected to treat her child; to nurture”).
- verb (obsolete, rare) To call (someone) "mama" (noun sense).
- verb (intransitive) To call out "mama".
- noun Synonym of mother (“a female parent”).
- noun (often familiar) Used as a (respectful) term of address for one's mother.
- noun A middle-aged black woman.
- noun (often familiar) Often in the form Mama: used as a (respectful) term of address for an adult woman.
- proper noun a Bantoid language spoken in Nigeria
Synonyms
Etymology
The origin of the noun is uncertain; it is probably a reduplication of ma, thought to be a sound made by babies when breastfeeding. The word is possibly influenced by Middle French maman (“mother”) (modern French maman), mamme (both probably from Latin mamma (“breast; nurse; (childish) mother, mama; grandmother”), probably cognate with Ancient Greek μᾰ́μμη (mắmmē, “breast; (childish) mother, mama; (Koine) grandmother”), both possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂- (“to nurse; mama, mother”)), but this is also uncertain as all the words could have developed independently as onomatopoeias.
Etymology 1, noun sense 3 (“(Caribbean) used as a term of address for a woman”) is possibly partly from a West African language; compare Akan mmá, mmaa (“woman”).
The interjection and verb are derived from the noun.
Borrowed from Xhosa umama and Zulu umama, sometimes only distinguishable from English mama (see etymology 1) by the context and pronunciation.
Webster’s 1913
- noun See Mamma.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “mama”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details