Dictionary

opa en · NOUN

Etymology

Borrowed from German Opa.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:among people of German-speaking ancestry) Grandfather, grandpa.
   • We love to eat: Opa's apple cake […] My opa (grandfather) had a long and beautifully kept allotment in the north German town of Flensburg. 2012 July 13, Clare Hansen, “Family life”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 06 Jun 2015:
   • That story of him playing football on his crutches I’ve heard from at least four people: my grandparents, my mum and one of the other boys, who’s since become a mildly creepy evangelical Christian. He retold it to me at my opa’s funeral, about half a century after the game. It’s true that I asked my opa some less than tactful questions on that visit. […] My opa had actually started writing a memoir once before, soon after my oma died. 2020, Alexander Starritt, We Germans, London: John Murray (Publishers), →ISBN:
   • My children have an oma and an OPA, so I knew that I could put in the O and the A. 2020 September 1, Deb Amlen, “Sales Spiel in 60 Seconds or Less”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 02 Sep 2020:
   • My opa grew up poor in Vienna and then got a scholarship to a prestigious Jewish high school. 2022 September 14, Jessica Grose, “What School Anxiety Dreams Teach Us About Ourselves”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Sep 2022:
   • I intuited that somehow I’d always been, yet, clearly, there was time — a considerable time — when I was not. So, where was I? I didn’t have an opa to ask. 2016 September 20, Jim Carnett, “Pondering the eternal with my grandson”, in Daily Pilot, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 02 Sep 2025:

Forms

Coordinates

oma