Meaning of Mothering Sunday | Babel Free

Definitions

The fourth Sunday of Lent, three Sundays before Easter, now especially as a day to honor one's mother.

UK

Examples

“...on Mothering Sunday, when all the ‘servant-lads’ and ‘servant wenches’ are, in some parts of the country, set at liberty for a day, to go and see their mothers...”

“Mary, it's twenty good year—twenty-one, come Mothering Sunday—'Since he was here at the farm.”

“"Mothering Sunday," the fourth Sunday in Lent, when absent sons and daughters—particularly the young apprentices—would return to their homes with some little present for both parents, but more especially for the mother... Imagine the... pride of the mother in the simple gift, and the admiration of the small brothers and sisters who gathered around and longed for the time when they also would be out in the great unknown world and could come "a-mothering."”

“Mothering Sunday is a British, Christian tradition. The Americans celebrate ‘Mother's Day’ later in the year.”

CEFR level