Aunt
/ænt/noun
The sister of one’s parent or the wife of one’s uncle.
Did you know?English aunt ultimately comes from Latin amita, a precise female kinship term that survived through French and then split into different modern pronunciations in English.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*am-
“A likely nursery sound associated with mothering or close family speech”
Latin
Latin
amita
“Paternal aunt”
Old French
Old French
ante
“Aunt”
Middle English
English
aunte
“Aunt”
Modern English
English
aunt
“The sister of one’s parent or the wife of one’s uncle”