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maternal

UK/məˈtɜːnəl/US/məˈtɝnəl/
adjectiveC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,945 of 15,258leans written

Maternal means to do with a mother, or motherly in feeling. Maternal instinct, maternal grandmother, maternal health.

Maternal grandmother means your mother's mother, which is a useful precision English otherwise lacks. Maternal mortality is one of the sharpest measures of a health system there is.

Unknown · Public domain

Definitions of maternal

  1. 1adjectivematernalTo do with a mother, or motherly in feeling.C1

    “She had strong maternal feelings towards the orphaned lambs.”

maternal is a quality.

Where it comes from

Middle French maternel comes from Latin maternus, from mater, a mother.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *méh₂tēr

  2. Latin

    māternālis — maternal

  3. Middle French

    maternel — maternal

  4. Middle English

    maternal

  5. English, today

    maternal

The adjective is derived from Late Middle English maternal, maternall, from Middle French maternel (“maternal”) (modern French maternel (“maternal; native”)), or from its etymon Latin māternālis (“maternal”), from Latin māternus (“maternal; related to the mother or her side of the family”) + -ālis. Māternus is derived from māter (“mother”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European méh₂tēr (“mother”)) + -rnus. The English word is cognate with Italian maternale, materno, Portuguese maternal, materno, Spanish maternal, materno. The noun is derived from the adjective.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

maternal in the wild

  • The placenta connects to the fetus via the umbilical cord, and on the opposite aspect to the maternal uterus in a species-dependent manner.

    Placenta

  • Maternal death or maternal mortality is defined in slightly different ways by several different health organizations.

    Maternal death

  • There are two main measures used when talking about the rates of maternal mortality in a community or country.

    Maternal death

  • A maternal bond is the relationship between a biological mother/caregiver and her child or baby.

    Maternal bond

  • In 2015, about 11.8 million maternal infections occurred.

    Postpartum infections

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.