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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

auncle en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɑŋ.kəl/

Etymology

Blend of aunt + uncle.

Meanings

  1. (rare) Used especially as a gender-neutral term: the sibling or sibling-in-law of one's parent.
    • By cross-cousin marriage, the parents-in-law are auncles (mother’s brother, father’s sister), but since we appear to have a Lukian term nere for parents-in-law but another, tuhe, for auncles, the Lukian relationship terms do not seem to be based upon a cross-cousin system. 1957, Die Welt des Orients, volume 2, page 495:
    • “Do you think we might have more than one child?” he ventured. After all, she was the one who’d have to bear them. / “Yes, I think so. You know the way Mum and LeeLee are, and Kris and Alex. Maybe a bit closer together might be good though, so we don’t end up with auncles only a little bit older than nevvies.” / “What and which?” / “Auncles?” / “And neivies” / Her face cleared. “Oh—you don’t use those words. They’re like sibling or parent. Non-specific.” 2018, Lark Westerly, The Kissing Ring, eXtasy Books, →ISBN, page 359:
    • And if we are considering all logical possibilities (or anyway all that we can manage to think up), and then assigning equal initial a priori probabilities to each, then should we not divide those having siblings with a child into uncles, aunts, auncles′, auncles″, auncles‴,…, etc., ad infinitum, where we distinguish between the aunclesⁿ(‴…) in whatever way we care to imagine? 1974, Mind, page 221:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
auncles Number=Plur lexicographic

Hyponyms

aunt · uncle

Synonyms

parsib · pibling