aunt: [13] Aunt appears to come ultimately from *amma, a hypothetical non-Indo-European word for ‘mother’ (parallel to Indo-European *mammā, and like it reproducing syllables perceived to be uttered by babies), which at some point was borrowed into Latin. It first appears in the derived form amita ‘paternal aunt’, which passed into English via Old French ante (of which modern French tante is an alternation) and Anglo-Norman aunte.
aunt (n.)
c. 1300, from Anglo-French aunte, Old French ante (Modern French tante, from a 13c. variant), from Latin amita "paternal aunt" diminutive of *amma a baby-talk word for "mother" (cognates: Greek amma "mother," Old Norse amma "grandmother," Middle Irish ammait "old hag," Hebrew em, Arabic umm "mother").
Extended senses include "an old woman, a gossip" (1580s); "a procuress" (1670s); and "any benevolent woman," in American English, where auntie was recorded since c. 1790 as "a term often used in accosting elderly women." The French word also has become the word for "aunt" in Dutch, German (Tante), and Danish. Swedish has retained the original Germanic (and Indo-European) custom of distinguishing aunts by separate terms derived from "father's sister" (faster) and "mother's sister" (moster). The Old English equivalents were faðu and modrige. In Latin, too, the formal word for "aunt on mother's side" was matertera. Some languages have a separate term for aunts-in-law as opposed to blood relations.
双语例句
1. She looks disconcertingly like a familiar aunt or grandmother.
令人疑惑的是，她看上去就像一位面熟的邻家阿姨或是祖母。
来自柯林斯例句
2. There's been no trace of my aunt and uncle.
没有我姑姑、姑夫的踪迹。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The studio is midway between his aunt's old home and his cottage.
工作室就在从他姑姑的老宅到他的小屋的中途。
来自柯林斯例句
4. He lives with an aunt who keeps house for him.
他和一位帮他料理家务的姑妈住在一起。
来自柯林斯例句
5. Her Aunt Sallie gave her an uncharacteristically extravagant gift.