Mother Goose
Preserved but no longer current.
Famous as giving the name to Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, which first seems to have been used in Songs for the Nursery: or Mother Gooseys Melodies for Children, published by T. Fleet in Boston, Mass., in 1719. The rhymes were free adapta- tions of Perrault's Contes de ma mere Foye ("Tales of my Mother Goose") which appeared in 1697.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “Mother Goose” mean?
Famous as giving the name to Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, which first seems to have been used in Songs for the Nursery: or Mother Gooseys Melodies for Children, published by T. Fleet in Boston, Mass., in 1719. The rhymes were free adapta- tions of Perrault's Contes de ma mere Foye ("Tales of my Mother Goose") which appeared in 1697.
Is “Mother Goose” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.