mom
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Informal terms for a mother.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
mahmIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈmɑm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Informal terms for a mother
informal
One's mother.
by extension
Used as a term of address for one's wife
informal
An adult female owner of a pet.
Prefix of a female commoner who marries a royal prince.
An idea or communication that makes one want to act, especially from spiritual sources; a divine prompting.
verb
transitivecanadausinformal
To care for in a motherly way.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Informal terms for a mother
Used this way, mom is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- mummy , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
- momma , more casual, better suited to speech than writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use mom
- “My mom always bakes the best cookies for holidays.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.