"tiger mother" meaning in English

See tiger mother in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: tiger mothers [plural]
Etymology: Sense “ambitious mother” popularized by the 2011 parenting memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. Head templates: {{en-noun}} tiger mother (plural tiger mothers)
  1. A woman who is fiercely protective of one or more people in her care. Categories (topical): Parents Synonyms: mama bear, mama grizzly
    Sense id: en-tiger_mother-en-noun-0Z5dZH7K Disambiguation of Parents: 46 54
  2. A mother who drives her child/children very hard to succeed in school or in extracurricular studies like learning a musical instrument. Categories (topical): Parents Synonyms: tiger mom, tiger mum
    Sense id: en-tiger_mother-en-noun-Mzxuzniq Disambiguation of Parents: 46 54 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 89 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 14 86 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 19 81

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for tiger mother meaning in English (4.3kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Sense “ambitious mother” popularized by the 2011 parenting memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tiger mothers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tiger mother (plural tiger mothers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Parents",
          "orig": "en:Parents",
          "parents": [
            "Family members",
            "Family",
            "People",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: wolf father"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1907, Elizabeth Fremantle, Comrades Two, William Heinemann, page 237",
          "text": "[…] I spent all last night on my knees, beseeching the Great Physician to hear me and heal my boy. […] but the instinct of the tiger-mother is tearing my heart to pieces […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift, Viking",
          "text": "When she was in her busy mood, domineering and protecting me, I used to think what a dolls' generalissimo she must have been in childhood. \"And where you're concerned,\" she would say, \"I'm a tiger-mother and a regular Fury. […]\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 May 8, Jane Hutchinson, “Be my baby”, in Sunday Telegraph Magazine",
          "text": "\"My sister calls us 'tiger mothers', because we're so protective,\" she says.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A woman who is fiercely protective of one or more people in her care."
      ],
      "id": "en-tiger_mother-en-noun-0Z5dZH7K",
      "links": [
        [
          "woman",
          "woman"
        ],
        [
          "protective",
          "protective"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "mama bear"
        },
        {
          "word": "mama grizzly"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "11 89",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "14 86",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "19 81",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Parents",
          "orig": "en:Parents",
          "parents": [
            "Family members",
            "Family",
            "People",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: eagle dad"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 May 9, J. G. Ballard, “Now parliament is just another hypermarket”, in New Statesman",
          "text": "I would like to see Oxford and Cambridge turned into graduate universities entirely devoted to research, which at a stroke would cool the ardour of the \"tiger mothers\" of Holland Park and Hampstead determined to set their three-year-olds on the path to Oxbridge, whatever the human cost.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 November 2, Anne McElvoy, “Take care, children: China's tiger cubs are on your tail”, in London Evening Standard",
          "text": "If you have tiger mother tendencies, the very worst thing you can do is visit China. It will only increase your determination to squeeze some achievement out of your young.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 April 28, Frank Bruni, “The Imperiled Promise of College”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "Tiger mothers and $125-an-hour tutors proliferate, and parents scrimp and struggle to pay up to $40,000 a year in tuition to private secondary schools that then put them on the spot for supplemental donations, lest the soccer field turn brown and the Latin club languish.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A mother who drives her child/children very hard to succeed in school or in extracurricular studies like learning a musical instrument."
      ],
      "id": "en-tiger_mother-en-noun-Mzxuzniq",
      "links": [
        [
          "mother",
          "mother"
        ],
        [
          "drives",
          "drives"
        ],
        [
          "child",
          "child"
        ],
        [
          "children",
          "children"
        ],
        [
          "succeed",
          "succeed"
        ],
        [
          "school",
          "school"
        ],
        [
          "extracurricular",
          "extracurricular"
        ],
        [
          "studies",
          "studies"
        ],
        [
          "musical instrument",
          "musical instrument"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "23 77",
          "word": "tiger mom"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "23 77",
          "word": "tiger mum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Amy Chua",
    "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother"
  ],
  "word": "tiger mother"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
    "en:Parents"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Sense “ambitious mother” popularized by the 2011 parenting memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tiger mothers",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tiger mother (plural tiger mothers)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: wolf father"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1907, Elizabeth Fremantle, Comrades Two, William Heinemann, page 237",
          "text": "[…] I spent all last night on my knees, beseeching the Great Physician to hear me and heal my boy. […] but the instinct of the tiger-mother is tearing my heart to pieces […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt's Gift, Viking",
          "text": "When she was in her busy mood, domineering and protecting me, I used to think what a dolls' generalissimo she must have been in childhood. \"And where you're concerned,\" she would say, \"I'm a tiger-mother and a regular Fury. […]\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 May 8, Jane Hutchinson, “Be my baby”, in Sunday Telegraph Magazine",
          "text": "\"My sister calls us 'tiger mothers', because we're so protective,\" she says.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A woman who is fiercely protective of one or more people in her care."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "woman",
          "woman"
        ],
        [
          "protective",
          "protective"
        ]
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "mama bear"
        },
        {
          "word": "mama grizzly"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Coordinate term: eagle dad"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 May 9, J. G. Ballard, “Now parliament is just another hypermarket”, in New Statesman",
          "text": "I would like to see Oxford and Cambridge turned into graduate universities entirely devoted to research, which at a stroke would cool the ardour of the \"tiger mothers\" of Holland Park and Hampstead determined to set their three-year-olds on the path to Oxbridge, whatever the human cost.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 November 2, Anne McElvoy, “Take care, children: China's tiger cubs are on your tail”, in London Evening Standard",
          "text": "If you have tiger mother tendencies, the very worst thing you can do is visit China. It will only increase your determination to squeeze some achievement out of your young.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 April 28, Frank Bruni, “The Imperiled Promise of College”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "Tiger mothers and $125-an-hour tutors proliferate, and parents scrimp and struggle to pay up to $40,000 a year in tuition to private secondary schools that then put them on the spot for supplemental donations, lest the soccer field turn brown and the Latin club languish.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A mother who drives her child/children very hard to succeed in school or in extracurricular studies like learning a musical instrument."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "mother",
          "mother"
        ],
        [
          "drives",
          "drives"
        ],
        [
          "child",
          "child"
        ],
        [
          "children",
          "children"
        ],
        [
          "succeed",
          "succeed"
        ],
        [
          "school",
          "school"
        ],
        [
          "extracurricular",
          "extracurricular"
        ],
        [
          "studies",
          "studies"
        ],
        [
          "musical instrument",
          "musical instrument"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "tiger mom"
    },
    {
      "word": "tiger mum"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Amy Chua",
    "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother"
  ],
  "word": "tiger mother"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.