mother-hive

See also: mother hive

English

Alternative forms

Noun

mother-hive (plural mother-hives)

  1. the principal or source hive of a colony of bees
    • 1909, Arthur Wade-Evans, Welsh Medieval Law:
      A mother-hive of bees is 24 pence in value.
  2. (idiomatic) a location similarly serving as the source of a group of people
    • 1882, Walt Whitman, Specimen Days:
      [John Whitman] came over in the True Love in 1640 to America and lived in Weymouth, Mass., which place became the mother-hive of the New Englanders of the name.

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