mother's milk
5
2.4
- noun
:
leche materna
- The first time Nuala nursed her, she devoured her mother's milk like she expected there to be a shortage, as if perhaps to say, "Well, it's about time!"
Examples
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He'll have to settle for his mother's milk.
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Although hyena cubs ingest some solid food during earlier developmental stages, they generally rely heavily on their mother's milk for several months after leaving the communal den.
Academic text (1998) -
And I want you to remember every word like it was the last drop of your mother's milk.
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There is simply no comparison to a mother's milk.
Blog text (14) -
With their mother's milk, they grow rapidly and are weaned at 10 weeks.
Academic text (2006) -
Oscar will rely on his mother's milk for a good while yet, and to keep that milk flowing Isha relies on the rich nuts in Freddy's kingdom.
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Newborns thrive on their mother's milk, which provides essential nutrients and antibodies.
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Many experts agree that mother's milk is the best source of nutrition for infants in their first year.
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During her maternity leave, she enjoyed the bonding time spent feeding her baby with mother's milk.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A white liquid from female animals or plants used for food
24
1.8
Milk made by a mother to feed her baby
2
7.9
A thick yellowish milk a mother makes in the first days after birth that protects the baby
Milk made at the start of a feed that is thinner and sweeter than later milk
Surface Forms
Morphology
mother's + milk
The meaning 'the milk produced by a woman after childbirth' is directly and compositionally derived from 'mother's' (belonging to the mother) + 'milk' (nutritive liquid). This possessive, literal construction is cross-linguistically common and contains no idiomatic shift, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will understand it.
Etymology
Mother's milk is the simple name for a mother's milk, the warm milk a mother gives her baby. Imagine a newborn drinking it straight from her, and you can see why the phrase means 'the natural food' or the best food for a baby.