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The string of an apron. To be tied to a wife's or mother's apron strings, to be unduly controlled by a wife or mother. He was so made that he could not submit to be tied to the apron strings even of the best of wives. Macaulay.

.), the line of relationship traced backward or through one's ancestors. One's father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, etc., are in the line direct ascending. -- Ascending node having, that node of the moon or a planet wherein it passes the ecliptic to proceed northward. It is also called the northern node. He…

The sister of one's father or mother; -- correlative to nephew or niece. Also applied to an uncle's wife.

A salutation and prayer to the Virgin Mary, as mother of God; -- used in the Roman Catholic church. To number Ave Maries on his beads. Shak.

time of producing or giving birth; as, a tree in full bearing; a tree past bearing. [His mother] in travail of his bearing. R. of Gloucester.

In time past; previously; already. You tell me, mother, what I knew before. Dryden.

Grandmother; -- corresponding to belsire. To show the beldam daughters of her daughter. Shak.

maintenance by the parish or town. Bastards also are settled in the parishes to which the mothers belong. Blackstone.

To allow; to permit; to suffer. [Obs.] So loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Shak.

lationship through only one parent. -- Whole blood, relationship through both father and mother. In American Law, blood includes both half blood, and whole blood. Bouvier. Peters.

ection, analogous to that of buds into blossoms; as, the bloom of youth. Every successive mother has transmitted a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty. Hawthorne.

laware Revolutionary captain, named Caldwell, that no cock could be truly game unless the mother was a blue hen, whence Blue Hen's Chickens came to be a nickname for the people of Delaware.

To receive; to take; to derive. Any drop thou borrowedst from thy mother. Shak. To borrow trouble, to be needlessly troubled; to be overapprehensive.

brambles growing together. He jumped into a bramble bush And scratched out both his eyes. Mother Goose.

the nourishment of the young; a mammma; a teat. My brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother. Cant. viii. 1.

hisper; as, to breathe a vow. He softly breathed thy name. Dryden. Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse, A mother's curse, on her revolting son. Shak.

spring; to bring forth; to bear; to procreate; to generate; to beget; to hatch. Yet every mother breeds not sons alike. Shak. If the sun breed maggots in a dead dog. Shak.

to shed light upon; to make cheerful; as, to brighten one's prospects. An ecstasy, which mothers only feel, Plays round my heart and brightens all my sorrow. Philips.

With lively intelligence; intelligently. Looking brightly into the mother's face. Hawthorne.

with salt; pickle; hence, any strong saline solution; also, the saline residue or strong mother liquor resulting from the evaporation of natural or artificial waters.