stepmother
Pluralstepmothers
- 1The wife of one's father who is not one's biological mother.
She grew close to her stepmother over the years they lived together.
Many fairy tales cast stepmothers as cruel rivals to the heroine.
Note
An old compound rather than a modern coinage: Old English stēopmōdor, step- plus mother, with a Proto-Germanic ancestor of the same meaning. Its gentler alternatives belong to different registers. Bonus mother is deliberately euphemistic, chosen to sidestep the word's harsh storybook reputation, while co-mother puts the stress on shared parenting. Stepmother itself is the plain, everyday term.
- 2A viola, especially Viola tricolor, also known as heartsease.
The cottage border was thick with stepmother and other low-growing violas.
The second came up about ten days later in the lee of the channel marker, and it was called stepmother, or love-in-idelness.
1974, Tove Jansson, The Summer BookSimilarheartsease
Note
A rare botanical name for the flower that turns up in Thomas Teal's 1974 translation of Tove Jansson's The Summer Book, where it is paired with love-in-idleness. In ordinary prose it needs that kind of support. Readers will take it in the family sense unless heartsease, Viola tricolor or a garden setting makes the flower obvious.
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Origin
From Middle English stepmoder, from Old English stēopmōdor, from Proto-Germanic *steupamōdēr, corresponding to step- plus mother. It is related to Dutch stiefmoeder, German Stiefmutter, and Swedish styvmor.