broodmare

[JAMES A. LANDAU Netscape. Just the Net You Need.]

On Sun, 24 Feb 2008 at 20:49:24 Zulu minus 5,  Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
wrote:

"Neither OED nor M-W has the figurative sense of "broodmare" as 'a woman
regarded chiefly or solely as a producer of children'. I'm familiar with
this usage, though I can't give citations for it, and a Google search is
swamped with literal uses. Can anyone else provide a cite?"

If memory serves, Lois McMaster Bujold's _Ethan of Athos_ had a line about the bad guy Millisor thinking of Janine as a "broodmare" for a race of psychic spies.  My copy has gone into a wormhole so I can't provide the exact citation.  Here "broodmare" has both meanings, the literal one of a dam and the more figurative one of Janine being used by Millisor only for producing children.

           James A. Landau
           test engineer
           Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
           8025 Black Horse Pike, Suite 300
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