Alas! poor country! . . . it can not
Be called our mother, but our grave. Shak.

I behold . . . the solitary majesty of Crete, mother of a religion, it is said, that lived two thousand years. Landor.

Mother Carey's chicken (Zoöl.), any one of several species of small petrels, as the stormy petrel (Procellaria pelagica), and Leach's petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa), both of the Atlantic, and O. furcata of the North Pacific. -- Mother Carey's goose (Zoöl.), the giant fulmar of the Pacific. See Fulmar. -- Mother's mark (Med.), a congenital mark upon the body; a nævus.

It is the mother falsehood from which all idolatry is derived. T. Arnold.

Mother cell (Biol.), a cell which, by endogenous divisions, gives rise to other cells (daughter cells); a parent cell. -- Mother church, the original church; a church from which other churches have sprung; as, the mother church of a diocese. -- Mother country, the country of one's parents or ancestors; the country from which the people of a colony derive their origin. - - Mother liquor (Chem.), the impure or complex residual solution which remains after the salts readily or regularly crystallizing have been removed. -- Mother queen, the mother of a reigning sovereign; a queen mother. -- Mother tongue. (a) A language from which another language has had its origin. (b) The language of one's native land; native tongue. -- Mother water. See Mother liquor (above). -- Mother wit, natural or native wit or intelligence.

The queen, to have put lady Elizabeth besides the crown, would have mothered another body's child. Howell.

* The film is composed of a mass of rapidly developing microörganisms of the genus Mycoderma, and in the mother of vinegar the microörganisms (Mycoderma aceti) composing the film are the active agents in the Conversion of the alcohol into vinegar. When thickened by growth, the film may settle to the bottom of the fluid. See Acetous fermentation, under Fermentation.