mother country

noun

Definition of mother country

1 : the country of one's parents or ancestors; also : fatherland

2 : the country from which the people of a colony or former colony derive their origin

3 : a country that is the origin of something

See mother country defined for English-language learners

Examples of mother country in a Sentence

Greece can boast to being the mother country of democracy.
even after decades of living in their adopted nation, they maintained a strong attachment to the mother country

Recent Examples of mother country from the Web

The Texas Revolution, like the American Revolution before it, was touched off when troops from the mother country were sent to repossess arms given to a militia for defense against Indians.

— steve russell, Newsweek, "America and Guns: To Understand That Deadly Obsession, Come to Texas," 7 Dec. 2017
Her piercing satires of British authorities, published in Boston newspapers starting in 1772, had prepared colonists for the final break with the mother country.

— erick trickey, Smithsonian, "The Woman Whose Words Inflamed the American Revolution," 20 June 2017
Internal political squabbles in both places could be as intense as those with the mother countries.

— The Christian Science Monitor, "Lessons in identity from Kurds and Catalans," 20 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'mother country.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.