Another way to say “parent”

Someone whose career was launched by a famous parent or well-connected family. Not strictly dating slang but heavily deployed when discussing who is allowed to date whom.

A term of highest praise for a woman — usually a pop star — who is absolutely dominating. "She is MOTHER" = she is THE one. "Mother is mothering" escalates it. Capitalized or uppercase for full effect. Beyoncé, Rihanna, Gaga, and Chappell have all been called mother within the same news cycle.

Training a smaller, cheaper model to mimic the output of a larger one. "The 1B distillation of our 70B model runs fine on a laptop." Critical for shipping AI on devices, edge inference, and cost reduction. Trade-off: distilled models lose nuanced reasoning the parent could do.

An adult fail is a moment when the basic responsibilities of grown-up life defeat you in a way that's too relatable not to share. Forgetting to pay a bill until it's already a fine, burning pasta, calling the wrong person 'mum' at a restaurant — these are all adult fails. The phrase carries more humour than shame; it's a communal acknowledgement that adulting is genuinely hard and that nobody has it fully figured out. Adult fails go viral precisely because they're universal: everyone has that story of something embarrassingly basic going catastrophically wrong.

A childish or affectionate North American diminutive for a diaper — the kind of word that lives in the vocabulary of parents, babysitters, and small children. It's warm, informal, and soft-edged, making the mundane task of diaper changes feel a little less clinical. You'll hear it in baby talk, parenting conversations, and anyone who refuses to let go of the cutesy language they used when their kids were toddlers.

The Maori word for New Zealand flax — a tall, striking plant native to New Zealand and the Pacific Islands that has been used for centuries in Maori weaving and craft. Harakeke is deeply embedded in Maori culture, with the plant itself carrying spiritual significance: the central shoot represents the child, surrounded by parent and grandparent leaves, symbolising family and community. Today it's used freely in New Zealand English as the standard name for the plant, a sign of how Maori language is woven into everyday Kiwi life.

A British idiom meaning 'get lost', 'scram', or 'you're not welcome here' — said with varying degrees of heat depending on the situation. It can be a jokey way to tell someone to stop bothering you or a genuinely hostile dismissal. The phrase got an extra layer of meaning in 1981 when politician Norman Tebbit referenced his unemployed father 'getting on his bike' to look for work, turning it into a loaded piece of British political shorthand about self-reliance.

A delightfully blunt Northern English and Scottish term for underpants. 'Kecks' (or 'keks') is already regional slang for trousers, so 'underkecks' naturally refers to what's worn underneath — your underwear, your smalls, your unmentionables. The word has a no-nonsense Northern quality to it, the kind of thing you'd hear a parent shouting up the stairs. It's functional, slightly funny, and instantly recognisable to anyone from the North of England.

Widdle is a charmingly childish British word for a wee — used both as a noun (the act of urinating) and a verb (to urinate). It's baby-talk that never fully grew up, surviving in British households as the polite, giggle-inducing way to say you need the loo. Parents deploy it with toddlers, adults use it to be funny or squeamish, and it occasionally surfaces in mild embarrassment situations — like when the dog wees on the carpet and someone says the dog did a widdle.

A British term for a washable cloth nappy — reusable fabric diapers as opposed to disposable ones. 'Real nappy' distinguishes cloth nappies from single-use disposables and is the preferred term in UK eco-parenting communities. The 'real' element implies the cloth version is more authentic or traditional, in contrast to disposables. Used in parenting forums, midwifery contexts, and environmental advocacy.

You; He, she (referring to someone who previously used your mother to refer to herself or himself).

A person whose mother tongue is one other than that spoken by the majority.

Son of the same parents as another person.

(slang, derogatory, neologism) A parent who allows their child near-unlimited (usually unsupervised) screen time; a parent who lets a tablet computer, such as an iPad, raise their child.

(vulgar, slang, acronym) A father or older man found sexually attractive.

(slang, chiefly, US) The father of a child in common, particularly one who did not marry the mother and provides little or no support for the mother and child.

(India) mother's father; maternal grandfather.

(India, historical) A person regarded as having a somewhat parental role toward their dependents; a benevolent overseer.

(North America) A mother who adheres to a style of parenting that combines using modern technology and natural methods, such as purchasing plastic products but following an organic diet.

(US, education, law) A legal maneuver through which parents can change the administration of a poorly performing public school, most notably by transforming it into a charter school.

(US, informal, euphemistic) God damn.

(Caribbean, BVE, Jamaica) The biological father of a (woman's) child, especially one to whom she is not married.

(chiefly, UK, AU, slang) A mother who is sexually attractive.

(mostly, UK, AU, slang, humorous) An unpleasant or unattractive mother.

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

(US, dialect, Southern US, less commonly) One's mother.

(British) A title used after a son's name when his father has the same name.