mother of all

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mother of all

Where it comes from

Calque of Arabic أُمّ (ʔumm, “mother (of)”). Popularized and given its current sense by Saddam Hussein's claim that the impending Gulf War would be the أُمّ المَعَارِك (ʔumm al-maʕārik, “mother of (all) battles”), though mother had long been used in somewhat similar senses in English, and other familial terms are used with the same meaning, like granddaddy (of all traffic jams) and father (of all battles).

phrase

colloquial, idiomatic Used before a plural noun to form a compound noun having the sense of: the greatest or largest of (its kind); the most epic example of (its kind). , etc.
Similar: father, granddaddy, grandmammy, Big One

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MLA

"mother of all." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/mother%20of%20all. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

mother of all. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/mother%20of%20all

Chicago

"mother of all." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/mother%20of%20all.

BibTeX

@misc{mother_of_all_2026,
  title = {mother of all},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/mother%20of%20all},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}