mother of

Idioms and Phrases

The best or greatest of a type, as in That was the mother of all tennis matches . This expression originated during the Gulf War as a translation of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's term umm al-ma'arik , for “major battle”; the Arabic “mother of” is a figure of speech for “major” or “best.” It was quickly adopted and applied to just about any person, event, or activity. [ Slang ; late 1980s]