maternal

adjective

1. 1

   Of or pertaining to a mother; having the characteristics of a mother; motherly.

   His weakness seemed to bring out her maternal instincts.

   However, the Hebrew (I ſay) is the moſt antient and maternall Language; for Adam uſed it, and all men before the Flood, as is manifeſt from the Scripture, and Fathers.

   If a dictionary be a ſelection, rather than a collection, of the words in our maternall Englyſhe; a dictionary cannot afford a deciſive proof of the non-exiſtence of a word, in ſome other book, which the lexicographer may have never read.

   The little blooming foundling was ſoon ordered to be produced before her, which brought the ſympathy of the mother to her eye, and to her heart. The infant had once, at leaſt, a maternal embrace; [...]. With a truly maternal care the child was placed with wife of one of the domeſticks of the Princeſs, provided with plain neceſſaries, and watched with the eye of humanity and tenderneſs.

2. 2

   Related through the mother, or her side of the family.

   Toby is my maternal uncle.

   Doctor [Alexander] MacWhorter was of Scotch extraction. His maternal ancestors were among the first emigrants from Scotland to the North of Ireland; and the family of his father removed to the same country about the time of his father's birth.

   It was so in the England of Alfred's day; the maternal kinsfolk paid a third of the wer [i.e., the wergeld]. The Leges Henrici, which about such a matter will not be inventing new rules, tell us that the paternal kinsfolk pay and receive two-thirds, the maternal kinsfolk one-third of the wer; and this is borne out by other evidence.

   While the attribution to the elder children of the given names of paternal grandparents was generally respected, alternation between paternal and maternal lines was not the rule. The father is more apt to have recourse to relatively distant paternal kin or to his own maternal kin than to his own affines. The paternal given names easily supplant the maternal ones.

3. 3

   Derived from the mother as opposed to the foetus during pregnancy.

   The facts which have now been stated warrant, I think, the conclusion, that the human placenta does not consist of two parts, maternal and fœtal, that no cells exist in its substance, and that there is no communication between the uterus and the placenta by large arteries and veins.

   Undernutrition occurs when dietary intake cannot meet nutritional requirements. The synthesis of maternal and fetal tissue or breast milk, and the associated costs of maternal maintenance increase nutrient requirements during pregnancy and lactation.

   While the animal–vegetal axis is patterned exclusively by maternal factors, the later developing dorsal–ventral axis depends on formation of the animal–vegetal axis and requires both maternal and zygotic contributions in zebrafish and frogs.

noun

1. 1

   datedA mother.

   In the necessarily brief space allotted to a review in these pages it would be impossible to sketch out the story at any length. Suffice it that there are two fathers, two sons and two daughters; the maternals, for once, go for little, but there is an Aunt Philly—a conception, that starts out in the intense reality of existence.

2. 2

   rareA person related through the mother, or her side of the family; a maternal relative.

   If there are both paternal and maternal uncles and aunts, the maternals take a third, even if there is only one of them, and whether male or female, and the paternals two-thirds, even though there is only one of them, and whether male or female. If the maternals are of one kind, a male has the portion of two females.

   My maternals were Huguenots on the lamb from the Duque de Guise and his cronies.

Forms

plural

maternals

comparative

more maternal

superlative

most maternal