Stepmother
nounThe woman married to one's parent who is not one's biological mother.
How to spell stepmother
10 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce stepmother
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does stepmother mean?
- nounThe woman married to one's parent who is not one's biological mother.
Stepmother in a sentence
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After the wedding, her stepmother moved into the family home.
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His stepmother helped him with his homework every evening.
Where does stepmother come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word joins the old prefix 'step-' to 'mother', and the prefix carries a surprisingly sombre origin. It descends from the Old English steop-, which meant 'bereaved' or 'orphaned', and was related to words for loss and deprivation; a steopcild was literally a child left without a parent. From that root the prefix came to mark family relationships created through remarriage rather than birth, so a steopmodor was the woman who took the place of a mother who had died or departed. 'Mother' itself is one of the oldest words in English, traceable through Germanic to an ancient root that shows up across many related languages, from Latin mater to Sanskrit matar. The compound has been in continuous English use since Anglo-Saxon times, long before the wicked figure of fairy tales fixed the word in the popular imagination. The spelling is straightforward once you remember it is simply 'step' bolted directly onto 'mother' with no extra letters.
How the word is built
- step- (Old English steop-: bereaved, related by remarriage)
- mother (female parent)
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