Grandmother

How to spell grandmother

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce grandmother

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does grandmother mean?

1. nounThe mother of one's father or mother.

Grandmother in a sentence

• My grandmother taught me how to bake bread from scratch.

• Every summer the children stayed with their grandmother in the countryside.

Where does grandmother come from?

Language of origin: French

The word is a transparent compound of 'grand' and 'mother', formed in English in the 1400s on a pattern borrowed from French. The 'grand' element comes from the Old French and ultimately Latin grandis, meaning 'great' or 'large', and in family terms it was used to mean 'a generation above the parent', mirroring French grand-mère. The 'mother' half is thoroughly native English, descending from Old English modor, which traces back through the Germanic languages to an ancient Indo-European root that gave nearly every European language its word for mother. Earlier English actually used 'grandam' and 'beldam' for the same relative before the neater 'grandmother' settled into place. Because both halves are familiar everyday words, the spelling is straightforward; the only thing to watch is the silent 'd' in 'grand', which the spoken form tends to swallow.

How the word is built

• grand- (one generation removed)
• mother (female parent)