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Glite Dictionary
🧢 Scout leader 🤱 Group caretaker
den mother

den mother

2 6.7
A woman who looks after and supports a group of children or young people
  • noun
  • /dɛn ˈmʌðər/
  • US
translation icon : madre de grupo
  • But to the younger girls who came in, she acted as some sort of butch den mother.

Examples

  • Billy's mom was our den mother.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • You look like the den mother.

    The Night of the Iguana (1964)

  • Tonight l'm your den mother.

    The Pacifier (2005)

  • Peters (female, Emergency Technician, the crew's den mother) and DJ (male, Doctor, a cold perfectionist) load CO2 scrubbers into a bin on the floor.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • During the camp, Sarah acted as the den mother for the children, ensuring they were safe and engaged.

  • At the community center, Linda took on the role of den mother, offering support and guidance to the youth group.

  • When it came time for the field trip, Jessica was our den mother, organizing the schedule and looking after everyone's needs.

Synonyms

mother figure
vsden mother
3 3.2

A woman who cares for and guides someone like a parent

acts as an assigned supervisor and mentor for a specific group
housemother
vsden mother
  • US
2 6.1

A woman who cares for and helps people living together, like in a dormitory

supervises groups more broadly, often children not only residents

How Responsible

guardian
347 2.8
den mother
  • US
2 6.7
to mentor
19 3.5
caretaker
60 1.9
babysitter
234 1.0

Surface Forms

den mother singular
den mothers plural

Morphology

den + mother

The sense 'a woman who supervises a group' is directly derivable from 'den' (a small scout grouping) + 'mother' (a maternal caregiver), so the overall meaning is compositional rather than idiomatic. This group+caretaker pattern is common cross-linguistically and in English (e.g., 'camp mother', 'mother hen'), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Den mother draws on the same image: a den is a small group and a mother is the caring adult who watches the group. So den mother is used more widely to mean 'a woman who supervises or looks after a group, often of children or young people'.