mother of

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Idioms and Phrases

The best or greatest of a type, as in That was the mother of all tennis matches . This expression originated during the Gulf War as a translation of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's term umm al-ma'arik , for “major battle”; the Arabic “mother of” is a figure of speech for “major” or “best.” It was quickly adopted and applied to just about any person, event, or activity. [ Slang ; late 1980s]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

“Necessity was definitely the mother of invention. I can’t wait around for someone else to make the things, the likes of which we want to be in and see in the world. We have to use whatever platform, notoriety, talent and connections we have to do it ourselves.”

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The mother of Oscar-nominated actor Amy Irving, Pointer was 100 years old.

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The woman who sat next to me, accompanied by her son, asked me, towards the end of the night, what album “Mother of Muses” was on, and if she could purchase it on Amazon.

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While modern popes live and work in the Vatican, the Lateran church is sometimes referred to in Catholicism as "the mother of all churches".

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Toni Purcell, mother of Harry, said his death was "completely avoidable".

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Mother Nature mother of coal

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