motherly

Etymology

From Middle English moderly, from Old English mōdorlīċ (“motherly, maternal”), from Proto-Germanic *mōdērlīkaz (“motherly, maternal”), equivalent to mother + -ly.

adj

1. Befitting a mother; warm, caring, nurturing, protective, loving.

adv

1. In a way pertaining to, befitting, or of a mother.
   The mother sometime beateth the child, but yet her hart melteth vpon it euen in the very beating, and therefore she casteth the rodde into the fier, and colleth the childe, geueth it an apple and dandleth it moste motherly. 1554, Iohn Bradford, Certain Most Godly, Fruitful, and Comfortable Letters of Such True Saintes and Holy Martyrs of God,[…], published 1564, page 288
   I Am glad that you approve and applaud my design, of withdrawing my self from all tumult and business of the World; and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies, to which Nature had so Motherly inclined me, and from which Fortune like a Step-mother has so long detained me. 1663, Abraham Cowley, The Danger of Procrastination, published 1669
   To the father it would have been the worst of his loss to see his son wiping the sweat and dust from the forehead his mother had been so motherly proud of, and hear the heavy sigh with which he would sink in the not too easy chair that was all his haven after the tossing of the day’s weary ground[-]swell. 1887, George Mac Donald, Home Again, London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., pages 52–53
   Mrs. Rutherford looked motherly at the eager girl and caressed her curls[…] 1925, Kamala Krishna, Torchbearers: A Story of the Realms of the Mastersouls, page 239