Aunt

How to spell aunt

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce aunt

What does aunt mean?

1. nounThe sister of one's mother or father, or the wife of one's uncle.

Aunt in a sentence

• My aunt flew in from Glasgow for the wedding.

• Every summer we stayed with our aunt at her seaside cottage.

Where does aunt come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from the Latin amita, which meant 'a father's sister', a specific kinship term in Roman families. It passed into Old French as ante and then into the Anglo-Norman French spoken after the Norman Conquest, which is how English picked it up around the 1200s. English broadened the sense so that it covered the sister of either parent, and later the wife of an uncle as well. The unusual 'au' spelling reflects the Old French vowel rather than the way most modern English speakers pronounce it, which is why the word looks heavier than it sounds. In American speech it often rhymes with 'ant', making the two words sound identical even though the spellings stayed apart.

How the word is built

• aunt (whole word, a kinship term; no separable affixes)

Words that sound like aunt

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• ant: A small social insect that lives in colonies, known for foraging and carrying loads many times its own weight.