Originally Posted By: BranShea
One step from lapidary father to mother-of-pearl and the word is a little bit odd. I looked at the online etymology:
mother of pearl

1510, translating M.L. mater perlarum, with the first element perhaps connected in popular imagination with obsolete mother
a thick substance concreting in liquors; the lees or scum concreted" [Johnson], which is from the root of mud.

I really don't know how to read this line.

(it ís the shiny surface of the inside of oysters and shells, isn't it?)



One possibility is that the Middle Latin mater in the mater perlarum is a corruption of Latin materia and it got folk-etymlogized to meaning mother. The nacre was assumed, just by its appearance, to be related to pearls, hence 'material of pearls'.