comare
Catalan
Etymology
From Late Latin commāter, from com- (“together”) + māter (“mother”).
Pronunciation
Noun
comare f (plural comares)
- co-mother (child's godmother in relation to their parents)
- Coordinate term: compare
- (Valencia, Balearic) midwife
- (colloquial) gossip, busybody
- (derogatory) procuress
Synonyms
Derived terms
- comaratge
- comarejar
- comareta
Further reading
- “comare”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
Italian
Alternative forms
- commare (archaic)
Etymology
From Late Latin commāter, from com- (“together”) + māter (“mother”). Cognate with Catalan comare, Neapolitan cummà, Sicilian cummari, Galician, Spanish, and Portuguese comadre, French commère, Norman conméthe, Romanian cumătră.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /koˈma.re/
- Rhymes: -are
- Hyphenation: co‧mà‧re
Noun
comare f (plural comari, masculine compare)
- a child's godmother in relation to their parents: a cummer, co-mother; or a child's mother in relation to their co-mother and her family
- Synonym: madrina
- Le allegre comari di Windsor ― The Merry Wives of Windsor
- (extensively) a female wedding witness or maid of honor in relation to the spouses, or a bride in relation to her wedding witness
- Synonyms: testimone, testimone di nozze
- (extensively, humorous, sometimes derogatory) gossipmonger
- Synonym: pettegola
- (extensively, informal) mistress (married man's female lover)
- Synonym: amante
Descendants
- → English: goomah
Anagrams
Latin
Verb
cōmāre
- second-person singular present passive subjunctive of cōmō