stepmother, n.
(ˈstɛpmʌðə(r))
Also 1 stéop-, 4 stip-, 5 stappe-, Caxton styfe- (after Du.).
[OE. stéopmódor: see step-. Cf. OFris. stiepmoder (NFris. stjap-, WFris. stiep-), MLG. stēfmoder, Du. stiefmoeder, OHG. stiufmuoter (MHG. stiefmuoter, mod.G. -mutter), Sw. styfmoder, Da. stifmoder.]
1. A woman who has married one's father after one's mother's death or divorce.
| c 725 Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) N 167 Nouerca, steopmoder. c 893 ælfred Oros. iii. vii. §2 Heo wæs Philippuses steopmodor. c 1205 Lay. 222 He ȝef heo his stepmoder For þon lofe of his broþer. Ibid. 14421 Heore steopmoder. c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. 47/8 Stepmoder is selde guod. c 1305 St. Swithin in E.E.P. (1862) 45 Seint Edwardes fader was þat his stipmoder a-slouȝ. 1390 Gower Conf. I. 104 My Stepmoder for an hate, Which toward me sche hath begonne, Forschop me. 1432–50 tr. Higden (Rolls) V. 273 His stappemodyr. 1471 Caxton Recuyell (Sommer) 83 His styfemoder. 1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 195 Thy fathers second wife, thy steppe mother. 1598 Bernard tr. Terence's Hecyra ii. i, With one consent all stepmothers hate their daughters in law. 1611 Shakes. Cymb. i. i. 71 You shall not finde me (Daughter) After the slander of most Step-mothers, Euill-ey'd vnto you. a 1692 Shadwell Volunteers i. ii, What is that Fathers Wife of kin to you? Clara. My true Stepmother. 1865 Le Fanu Guy Deverell iv. I. 51 His mother indeed she was not; but only the stepmother of his deceased wife. 1914 J. Mackay Ch. in Highlands ii. 49 A man might marry his stepmother. |
b. transf. Said of a bird that hatches another bird's eggs.
| 1567 J. Maplet Gr. Forest 97 b, So soone as those yong can heare but their..Natiue Dams note, they leaue their Step⁓mother or Nurses [the Partridge's] foode by and by. 1711 Addison Spect. No. 121 ¶1 The young, upon the sight of a pond, immediately ran into it; while the step-mother, with all imaginable anxiety, hovered about the borders of it. 1815 Stephens in Shaw's Gen. Zool. IX. i. 76 The bird often proves a mother and step-mother at the same time, by bringing into life the whole brood. |
c. fig.| 1387–8 T. Usk Test. Love iii. ix. (Skeat) 86 My dul wit is hindred by stepmother of foryeting. [Cf. Higden Polychr. (Rolls) I. 5 Novercante oblivione.] 1396–7 in Eng. Hist. Rev. (1907) XXII. 296 Qwan þe chirche of Yngelond began to dote in temporalte aftir her stepmodir þe grete chirche of Rome. a 1400 Relig. Pieces fr. Thornton MS. (1867) 13 Ydillnes es..stepmodire and stamerynge agaynes gude thewes. 1426 Lydg. De Guil. Pilgr. 15985 The Step⁓moder off vertu, And ful enmy to cryst ihesu, Wych callyd ys ‘Prosperyte’. 1430–40 ― Bochas ii. ii. (1554) 44 Flattery Which is a stepmother called..To all vertue. 1646 J. Hall Horæ Vac. 15 He seem'd to carry Reason along with him, who called Nature Step-mother, in that she gives us so small a portion of Time. 1659 N. R. Prov., Eng. Fr. etc. 32 Fortune to one is a mother, another a step-mother. 1664 Evelyn Sylva (1679) 18 All sort of Clay, is held but a step⁓mother to Trees. c 1695 J. Miller Descr. New York (1843) 10 New York, in these [necessaries], is not unkind; but though a stepmother to those who come from England, yet furnishes them..plentifully. 1705 Hickeringill Priest-cr. ii. v. 56 Happy we, that Her Majesty does not behave Her self like a Step-mother to the Moderate Party. 1913 Contemp. Rev. June 827 The monastery had got the credit of founding a school, but had really been a stepmother to it. |
| quasi-adj. 1715 J. Chappelow Right Way to be Rich (1717) 81 Turn'd naked into a frowning step-mother world. |
d. attrib. as
stepmother dole,
† stepmother shive (with reference to the stinginess ascribed to stepmothers). Also
Comb. stepmother-in-law.
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 361/2 A Stepmoder schyfe, colirida. 1847 C. Brontë J. Eyre xxxi, Nature..forgetting her usual stinted stepmother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a granddame's bounty. 1904 Verney Mem. II. 133 Eleanor, Countess of Warwick..stepmother-in-law to the Protector's daughter. |
2. dial. a. More fully,
stepmother's blessing: an agnail.
| 1818 Wilbraham Chesh. Gloss., Stepmother's Blessing, a little reverted skin about the nail, often called a back friend. 1862 C. C. Robinson Dial. Leeds 421 Stepmothers, hang⁓nails. |
b. (See
quot.)
| 1828 Carr Craven Gloss., Step-mother, the name given to the flowers of the violet in general, but more particularly to those of the viola tricolor, pansies or hearts-ease, etc. |
Hence
ˈstepmother v. trans., (
a) to provide with a stepmother; (
b) to behave as a stepmother to.
ˈstepmotherly a., pertaining to or characteristic of a stepmother; hence
ˈstepmotherliness.
| 1848 [M. W. Savage] Bachelor of Albany 210 [The cook] obliged her barbarous mistress to abandon..her stepmotherly designs. 1860 Wraxall Life in Sea viii. 192 The Acephala have not been treated by her [Nature] in such a step-motherly fashion as might be supposed from their headless condition. 1887 A. J. Wilson At Mercy of Tiberius vii, When I want my children step-mothered I will let you know. 1894 Kate K. Ide in Advance (Chicago) 22 Mar., A good grandmother, whose grandchildren had become step-mothered. 1892 J. Barlow Irish Idylls iii. 41 He knows what ills forthwith await him, what step⁓motherliness of barren earth. 1896 E. A. King Ital. Highways 63 Alma Mater is but step-motherly to her daughters in our own country. |