Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Not resembling or not befitting a mother.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Not
motherly ;unmaternal .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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If Mama Cow continues to act unmotherly, this calf will be a bum orphan.
Archive 2010-04-01 Gumbo Lily 2010
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If Mama Cow continues to act unmotherly, this calf will be a bum orphan.
Calf born backwards.... Gumbo Lily 2010
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In biographies, Flora is often presented as cruel and unmotherly to Jack.
Flora Wellman 2007
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And again solemnly interrogated, declares, that she would have been drawn with wild horses, rather than have touched the bairn with an unmotherly hand.
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I scrutinized her selection of eye shadow, dipped my fingers in pots of brilliant pink blush, and sat mesmerized by the wondrous transformation taking place before me—a person turning from my mom into a woman who seemed beautiful and sophisticated and so, well, unmotherly.
Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume Jennifer O'Connell 2007
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I scrutinized her selection of eye shadow, dipped my fingers in pots of brilliant pink blush, and sat mesmerized by the wondrous transformation taking place before me—a person turning from my mom into a woman who seemed beautiful and sophisticated and so, well, unmotherly.
Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume Jennifer O'Connell 2007
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He and all the world thought hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be misjudged. '
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And what do you think became of the unmotherly hen?
The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers Various
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Would you believe it, children? in one day, this unmotherly hen had pecked all but one of her chickens to death; and, when Aunt Jane found this poor chap, he had but one eye, and all the toes were gone from one foot; so that he had to stand on the other.
The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers Various
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No one has ever attempted to violate the solitude of the sanctuary where Selima wept for the seven little ones taken to the grave, and for the absent one whom she had treated with unmotherly neglect.
The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II Various
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