Grandma

How to spell grandma

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce grandma

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does grandma mean?

1. nounAn informal, affectionate term for one's grandmother, the mother of one's parent.

Grandma in a sentence

• Every Sunday we drive over to visit grandma for lunch.

• My grandma taught me how to bake bread when I was young.

Where does grandma come from?

Language of origin: French

This is a warm, informal pairing of two older pieces. The 'grand-' element comes from the Old French and ultimately Latin grandis, which meant 'great' or 'large', and in family terms it signalled a generation older, so a grandmother was literally the 'great mother'. English began stacking 'grand-' onto family words in the 1400s, copying the French habit (the French still say grand-mere). The 'ma' part is the affectionate nursery shortening of 'mama', itself one of the easy repeated sounds babies make in almost every language. Pushed together as a cosy, spoken form, 'grandma' appears in print from the late 1700s and early 1800s as the familiar alternative to the formal 'grandmother'. The spelling is gentle on writers, since both halves are short and phonetic, with no silent surprises.

How the word is built

• grand- (great, from Old French grand)
• -ma (childish shortening of mama, mother)