See be mother on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Pouring tea is traditionally the mother's role in a family setting.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "being mother",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "been mother",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "be mum",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-",
"2": "being mother",
"3": "-",
"4": "been mother"
},
"expansion": "be mother (no third-person singular simple present, present participle being mother, no simple past, past participle been mother)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "British English",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Entries with translation boxes",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with French translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Italian translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Japanese translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with Russian translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Tea",
"orig": "en:Tea",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
40,
49
]
],
"text": "Ah, here are the cakes and tea; shall I be mother?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
52,
61
]
],
"ref": "2009, Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News?, page 277:",
"text": "They went to a cafe and had afternoon tea.\n'Shall l be mother?' Marcus said, lifting a utilitarian brown teapot, all cosied up in something that looked like a bobble hat.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
0,
10
]
],
"ref": "2012, Betty Neels, The Final Touch:",
"text": "'Be mother, will you, Charity? Teile and Letizia have a watered-down version.'\nSo they had a pleasant tea, although Charity kept an anxious eye on the clock, keen not to outstay her welcome.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To pour out tea for others."
],
"id": "en-be_mother-en-verb-VBucpZGX",
"links": [
[
"pour",
"pour"
],
[
"out",
"out"
],
[
"tea",
"tea"
],
[
"others",
"others"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, UK) To pour out tea for others."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "do the honors"
},
{
"word": "mother-to-be"
}
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic",
"no-past"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "servir le thé"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"lang_code": "it",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "versare il tè"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"lang_code": "it",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "servire il tè"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"lang_code": "ja",
"roman": "ocha o tsugu",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "お茶を注ぐ"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"lang_code": "ru",
"roman": "razlivátʹ čaj",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "разлива́ть чай"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-be mother.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7d/En-au-be_mother.ogg/En-au-be_mother.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/En-au-be_mother.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
]
}
],
"word": "be mother"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Pouring tea is traditionally the mother's role in a family setting.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "being mother",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "been mother",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "be mum",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "-",
"2": "being mother",
"3": "-",
"4": "been mother"
},
"expansion": "be mother (no third-person singular simple present, present participle being mother, no simple past, past participle been mother)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "do the honors"
},
{
"word": "mother-to-be"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"British English",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English terms with quotations",
"English terms with usage examples",
"English verbs",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned",
"Terms with French translations",
"Terms with Italian translations",
"Terms with Japanese translations",
"Terms with Russian translations",
"en:Tea"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
40,
49
]
],
"text": "Ah, here are the cakes and tea; shall I be mother?",
"type": "example"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
52,
61
]
],
"ref": "2009, Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News?, page 277:",
"text": "They went to a cafe and had afternoon tea.\n'Shall l be mother?' Marcus said, lifting a utilitarian brown teapot, all cosied up in something that looked like a bobble hat.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
0,
10
]
],
"ref": "2012, Betty Neels, The Final Touch:",
"text": "'Be mother, will you, Charity? Teile and Letizia have a watered-down version.'\nSo they had a pleasant tea, although Charity kept an anxious eye on the clock, keen not to outstay her welcome.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To pour out tea for others."
],
"links": [
[
"pour",
"pour"
],
[
"out",
"out"
],
[
"tea",
"tea"
],
[
"others",
"others"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, UK) To pour out tea for others."
],
"tags": [
"UK",
"idiomatic",
"no-past"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-be mother.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7d/En-au-be_mother.ogg/En-au-be_mother.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/En-au-be_mother.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "servir le thé"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"lang_code": "it",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "versare il tè"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"lang_code": "it",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "servire il tè"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"lang_code": "ja",
"roman": "ocha o tsugu",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"word": "お茶を注ぐ"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"lang_code": "ru",
"roman": "razlivátʹ čaj",
"sense": "to pour out tea for others",
"tags": [
"imperfective"
],
"word": "разлива́ть чай"
}
],
"word": "be mother"
}
Download raw JSONL data for be mother meaning in All languages combined (3.1kB)
{
"called_from": "form_descriptions/1698",
"msg": "unrecognized head form: no third-person singular simple present",
"path": [
"be mother"
],
"section": "English",
"subsection": "verb",
"title": "be mother",
"trace": ""
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-06-07 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-06-01 using wiktextract (e79dea5 and 7f4db16). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.