māter- / Indo-European roots
Examples of words with the root māter-: Demeter, madrepore, mater, material, maternal, matrimony, matrix, matron, matter, metro-, metropolis, mother.
māter-
Mother.
Based ultimately on the baby-talk form mā-2, with the kinship term suffix *-ter-.▲ Derivatives include mother1, matrix, matter.
1.
a. mother1 from Old English mōdor, mother;
b. mother2 from Middle Dutch moeder, mother. Both a and b from Germanic *mōdar-.
2. alma mater, mater, maternal, maternity, matriculate, matrix, matron; madrepore, matrimony from Latin māter, mother.
3. metro-; metropolis from Greek mētēr, mother.
4. material, matter from Latin māteriēs, māteria, tree trunk (< "matrix" the tree's source of growth), hence hard timber used in carpentry, hence (by a calque on Greek hūlē, wood, matter) substance, stuff, matter.
5. Demeter from Greek compound Dēmētēr, name of the goddess of produce, especially cereal crops (dē-, possibly meaning "earth").
[Pokorny mātér- 700.]
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