aunt

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
4
Words With Friends
6
Letters
4
Pronunciation
/ɑːnt/
See all 7 pronunciations
/ɑːnt/ · /ænt/ · /ant/ · [änt] · /ɔnt/ · /ʌnt/ · /eɪnt/

Definition of aunt

5 senses · 1 part of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. The sister or sister-in-law of one’s parent.
    “As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle... the clan has a tendency to ignore me.”
See all 5 definitions

noun

  1. The sister or sister-in-law of one’s parent.
    “As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle... the clan has a tendency to ignore me.”
  2. The female cousin or cousin-in-law of one’s parent.
  3. (endearing)A woman of an older generation than oneself, especially a friend of one's parents, by means of fictive kin.
  4. (obsolete)Any elderly woman.
  5. (obsolete)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.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

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…

See full 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).

Hooks

8 extensions · 6 front · 2 back

A single letter you can add to aunt to make another valid word.

Find your best play with aunt

See every word you can make from a set of letters that includes aunt, or browse word lists you can mine for high-scoring plays.