Mother Earth

Mother Earth

2. The personification of the Earth, (chiefly) conceived as a fertile, nurturing, and loving mother; a personification invoked in many contexts, religious and nonreligious, including figurative use in scientific contexts.

   Synonyms: Earth, Gaia, Gaea, Terra

   Near-synonym: Mother Nature

   • 1928 February 25 – March 3, Arthur Conan Doyle, “When the World Screamed”, in The Professor Challenger Stories […], London: John Murray, […], published [1952], →OCLC, page 574:

     We had not gone thirty paces from the shaft when far down in the depths my iron dart shot into the nerve ganglion of old Mother Earth and the great moment had arrived.

4. (religion) The goddess of the earth in various cultures; a statue or figurine of this goddess.

   Synonyms: Earth Mother, Great Earth Mother, Great Mother, Great Goddess (various folk, pagan, or neopagan religions); Gaia, Gaea, Ge, Rhea, Demeter (Greek); Terra, Tellus (Roman); Bhumi (Hinduism)

   • 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 73:

     [P]igs and sows by their exceeding fruitfulness would in their hour of sacrifice remind old mother Earth of what was expected from her!

• Earth Mother, earth mother