Essential Word Roots: The Mother of All Lists: Mater, Matr

alma (nourish) + māter (mother)
Originally this phrase referred to ancient Roman goddesses such as Ceres and Cybele, who embodied both agricultural and biological fertility. Over the course of the 18th century, it came to denote a person’s university — that is, where you were "nurtured" as a student.

māter (origin, mother ) + al (of, belonging to)
A madrigal is a short love poem or a simple song usually sung by two to eight voices unaccompanied by instruments. Madregal is thought to come from a 14th-century Venetian dialect and to ultimately derive from Late Latin matricalis, "maternal, natural, primitive."

māter (origin, mother) + ial (of, relating to)
Material is loaded with meanings. As a noun, it can refer to "the substance from which something is made." This meaning relates to māter in the sense of "origin": material is the substance that creates or forms something.

māter (womb, mother) + -ity (quality of being)
Maternity can refer to "the state of being pregnant," but these days it's commonly used as a synonym for "the state of being a mother; motherhood." The word is also used as an attributive adjective in phrases like "maternity clothes" or "maternity leave."

mātri- (Latin: mother) + -arch (Greek: ruler)
The English word matriarch is formed from a combination of Greek and Latin roots. This word was first used in 17th-century Europe and was abstracted from patriarch — which, as you may have guessed, means “a man who heads a family or tribe.”

mātri- (mother) + -cida (killer)
Matricide is a noun that describes both the act of killing one's mother and the person who kills his or her mother. Both meanings came into use between the 1590s and 1630s. In the Old English, the equivalent word was moðorslaga, or "mother-slayer."

mātrīc- (register, list) + -ula (forming nouns)
Matriculate is both a noun and a verb — so if you're a matriculate, you have matriculated. In Latin, matricula referred to a public register and derived from matricis, "list" or "source or womb." In the 16th century, matricis came to mean “a place where something is developed,” which in turn led to the modern meaning of matriculate.

mātri- (mother) + -monium (action, state, condition)
Both matrimony and marriage come from the 12th-century French matremonie, "property inherited from one's mother," which in turn derives from Latin matrimonium ("wedlock, marriage"). Remember that matrimony joins not only two people but also their property!

mātrīc-, mātrīx (breeding female animal)
OR
māter (mother) + -trīx (after nūtrīx, wet-nurse)
The etymology of matrix is contested, but one thing is clear: the root mātri- is in there! How did we get from the idea of "an animal that breeds" to "an enclosure in which something develops" or "a computer-simulated reality"? The meanings of matrix have evolved, but they all relate to the idea of something that encompasses something else.

mātri- (mother) + -ōna (after patrōnus, patron)
The root form of this word originally meant "married woman," but by the 14th century, it could also refer to an elderly lady, a female patron, or a midwife. The sense of a "female manager (as of a school or hospital)" was first recorded in the 1550s. In the U.S., a "matron of honor" is a wedding attendant who is already married.

māter (mother) + -ia (ending for abstract nouns)
Like material, matter has a range of meanings. Its relation to māter comes from its simplest definition: "physical material or substance": a mother's womb is where formation and development occur, and matter is that which forms or composes a physical object or substance.

mētropolis (Latin) and metrόpolis (Greek)
Metropolis derives from Latin and Greek words meaning a "capital city," as well as a "see of a bishop." In Greek, mátr- (mother) + pόlis (city) referred to the "mother city of a colony."