Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or condition of having a mate (someone to reproduce with).

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mate +‎ -hood

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word matehood.

Examples

  • She thought she would keel over in shock if someone got to know her, and then, based on her personal merits alone—not matehood, or whatever—said, No doubt of it.

    Kresley Cole Immortals After Dark: The Clan MacRieve Kresley Cole 2010

  • Though matehood was as good as forever for his kind, the Valkyrie preferred some kind of binding ceremony—Annika had backed down from her hostility a grudging inch once Lachlain had agreed to give Emma one.

    Kresley Cole Immortals After Dark: The Clan MacRieve Kresley Cole 2010

  • “Yeah, since matehood means you own fifty percent of all his swag, then bring me home any vinyl LPs you may come across, some weapons, and of course, anything shiny.”

    Kresley Cole Immortals After Dark: The Clan MacRieve Kresley Cole 2010

  • So Edwards has to stay in the background and hope that the two will destroy each other and relegate themselves to running-matehood, like Geraldine Ferraro.

    Matthew Yglesias » Off The Record 2007

  • The mixture was of pride and jealousy, approval and solicitude, motherhood and matehood -- quite a curious little study in expression.

    Jan A Dog and a Romance 1912

  • Off there, beyond the pale of the cabin and the influence of Nepeese, were all the things that the wolf blood in him found now most desirable: companionship of his kind, the lure of adventure, the red, sweet blood of the chase -- and matehood.

    Baree, Son of Kazan James Oliver Curwood 1903

  • It struck upon him like a clashing discord, the fact of matehood between these two -- a condition inconsistent and out of tune with the beautiful things he had built up in his mind about the woman.

    The Flaming Forest James Oliver Curwood 1903

  • Nature could tell him nothing of Kazan's merciless vengeance, of the wonderful years of their matehood, of their loyalty, their strange adventures in the great

    Baree, Son of Kazan James Oliver Curwood 1903

  • To see a bird singing on a twig means but little; but to live a season with that bird, to be with it in courting days, in matehood and motherhood, to understand its griefs as well as its gladness means a great deal.

    Baree, Son of Kazan James Oliver Curwood 1903

  • The vision of home, the complete matehood, had gone the way of all dreams.

    Black Oxen Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton 1902

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.