aunt

noun
/ɑːnt/

Etymology

From Middle English aunte, from Anglo-Norman aunte, from Old French ante, from Latin amita (“father's sister”). Displaced native Middle English modrie (“aunt”) (from Old English mōdriġe (“maternal aunt”); compare Old English faþu, faþe (“paternal aunt”)). The digraph ⟨au⟩ representing /æ ~ ɑː/ instead of the expected /ɔː/ is irregular, and has not been conclusively explained (compare launch, which contains /ɑː/ in some UK dialects).

  1. derived from amita
  2. derived from ante
  3. derived from aunte
  4. inherited from aunte

Definitions

  1. The sister or sister-in-law of one’s parent.

  2. The female cousin or cousin-in-law of one’s parent.

  3. A woman of an older generation than oneself, especially a friend of one's parents, by…

    A woman of an older generation than oneself, especially a friend of one's parents, by means of fictive kin.

  4. + 2 more definitions
    1. Any elderly woman.

    2. A procuress or bawd.

      • I saw neither hope of his reclaiming, nor comfort in his being; and was it not then better bestowed upon his uncle than upon one of his aunts?—I need not say bawd, for every one knows what aunt stands for in the last translation.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for aunt. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA