maternalism

1. 1.

   the quality of having or showing the tenderness and warmth and affection of or befitting a mother

   “the girl's motherliness made her invaluable in caring for the children”

   Synonymsmotherlinessmaternal qualitymaternity

   Broaderparental quality
2. 2.

   motherly care; behavior characteristic of a mother; the practice of acting as a mother does toward her children

   Broadercare

Other forms of maternalism

plural

maternalisms·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about maternalism

What does maternalism mean?

maternalism means "the quality of having or showing the tenderness and warmth and affection of or befitting a mother". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in maternalism?

maternalism has 4 syllables: ma-ter-na-lism. The stress falls on "ter".

What is another word for maternalism?

Close synonyms include motherliness, maternal quality, maternity. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is maternalism a common word?

maternalism is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.