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mother of
Idioms and Phrases
The best or greatest of a type, as in That was the mother of all tennis matches . This expression originated during the Gulf War as a translation of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's term umm al-ma'arik , for “major battle”; the Arabic “mother of” is a figure of speech for “major” or “best.” It was quickly adopted and applied to just about any person, event, or activity. [ Slang ; late 1980s]Example Sentences
Alice Tan Ridley, a singer who shared her powerful vocals on the New York City subway before performing on “America’s Got Talent” and the mother of Oscar nominee Gabourey Sidibe, has died.
"A victim impact statement from the mother of the prison officer... has highlighted the upsetting reality and mental impact," she said.
The 80-year-old mother of a man shot dead in a Tube station by police who mistook him for a terror suspect says she will continue to fight for him and "show the world the truth".
The births were a "first" in the zoo's 150-plus-year history, it said, and Mommy - who arrived at the zoo in 1932 - was the oldest known first-time mother of her species.
“A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles,” Lazarus wrote shortly after the Civil War in 1883.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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