From Latin 'mater' (mother), from PIE *meh2ter — one of the most ancient words in Indo-European, source of 'mother.'
Of or relating to a mother; inherited from or related through one's mother.
From Late Latin 'maternalis' (of or belonging to a mother), from 'maternus' (motherly, of a mother), from 'mater' (mother), from PIE *méh₂tēr (mother), one of the most stable and ancient words in the Indo-European family, found virtually unchanged across thousands of miles and years. The PIE form *méh₂tēr generated: Sanskrit 'mātṛ' (mother), Greek 'mētēr' (mother), Latin 'māter', Old Irish 'máthir', Old English 'mōdor' (modern 'mother'), Armenian 'mayr', and Lithuanian 'motė' (woman, wife). The root is thought to be a nursery word — a natural reduplication of the 'ma' sound — that was
The word 'mother' is so stable across Indo-European languages that it served as key evidence for the entire field of comparative linguistics. Latin 'māter,' Greek 'mētēr,' Sanskrit 'mātā,' Old English 'mōdor,' Russian 'mat'' — the consistency led nineteenth-century scholars to conclude these languages must share a common ancestor.