"mother-hen" meaning in English

See mother-hen in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: mother-hens [present, singular, third-person], mother-henning [participle, present], mother-henned [participle, past], mother-henned [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|++}} mother-hen (third-person singular simple present mother-hens, present participle mother-henning, simple past and past participle mother-henned)
  1. (transitive, intransitive) To behave in an overprotective or extremely nurturing manner (towards). Tags: intransitive, transitive Related terms: mother hen [noun], henpecked
    Sense id: en-mother-hen-en-verb-4-ocvyq- Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for mother-hen meaning in English (1.7kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mother-hens",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "mother-henning",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "mother-henned",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "mother-henned",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "++"
      },
      "expansion": "mother-hen (third-person singular simple present mother-hens, present participle mother-henning, simple past and past participle mother-henned)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997, Renon Klossner Hulet, Don't You Dare Give Up, page 201",
          "text": "Concerned for Diane's well-being, he mother-henned her constantly.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Patricia Rice, Rebel Girl",
          "text": "He watched as Jo mother-henned her entire family, including the kids, into the closed café.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Erik Henry Vick, Demon King",
          "text": "The two little ones were up on the sidewalk now, being mother-henned by two ladies with blue hair and eating ice cream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To behave in an overprotective or extremely nurturing manner (towards)."
      ],
      "id": "en-mother-hen-en-verb-4-ocvyq-",
      "links": [
        [
          "overprotective",
          "overprotective"
        ],
        [
          "nurturing",
          "nurture"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, intransitive) To behave in an overprotective or extremely nurturing manner (towards)."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "noun"
          ],
          "word": "mother hen"
        },
        {
          "word": "henpecked"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "mother-hen"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "mother-hens",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "mother-henning",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "mother-henned",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "mother-henned",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "++"
      },
      "expansion": "mother-hen (third-person singular simple present mother-hens, present participle mother-henning, simple past and past participle mother-henned)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "noun"
      ],
      "word": "mother hen"
    },
    {
      "word": "henpecked"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1997, Renon Klossner Hulet, Don't You Dare Give Up, page 201",
          "text": "Concerned for Diane's well-being, he mother-henned her constantly.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Patricia Rice, Rebel Girl",
          "text": "He watched as Jo mother-henned her entire family, including the kids, into the closed café.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Erik Henry Vick, Demon King",
          "text": "The two little ones were up on the sidewalk now, being mother-henned by two ladies with blue hair and eating ice cream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To behave in an overprotective or extremely nurturing manner (towards)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "overprotective",
          "overprotective"
        ],
        [
          "nurturing",
          "nurture"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, intransitive) To behave in an overprotective or extremely nurturing manner (towards)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive",
        "transitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "mother-hen"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.