MOTHERLESS Synonyms: 12 Similar and Opposite Words

motherless

adjective

Definition of motherless next

as in fatherless

Related Words

Relevance

Dissimilar Words

legitimate

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of motherless Both are also for all purposes motherless boys—Suwa’s mother died and his father survives her, full of an unanswerable grief. —

Literary Hub, 12 Mar. 2026 Kin is about two childhood friends—both motherless daughters—on the road to womanhood and partly set in Georgia’s capital, in particular at Jones’s alma mater, Spelman College. —

Riza Cruz, Vogue, 24 Feb. 2026 Both are motherless but for different reasons. —

Tembe Denton-Hurst, Vulture, 24 Feb. 2026 Instead, Jones wrote an historical novel set in the 1950s and ‘60s about lifelong friends Annie and Vernice, two motherless girls born in small-town Louisiana who take different paths in life to fill the void left behind by the absence of a mother’s love. —

Suzanne Van Atten, AJC.com, 22 Feb. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for motherless

fatherless

Adjective

That his children are fatherless because his ideas and his beliefs differed from somebody else, apparently.

— Jackson Thompson, FOXNews.com, 11 Sep. 2025

Definition of fatherless