auntie

• aunty

From aunt +‎ -ie.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈæn.ti/, /ˈɑːn.ti/
• (Ghana) IPA^(key): /ˈɐn.ti/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːnti, -ænti
• Homophones: ante, any, anti (in some accents)

auntie (plural aunties)

1. (endearing) Diminutive of aunt.

   Coordinate term: unkie

2. (Asia, Africa, Australia) Term of familiarity or respect for a middle-aged or elderly woman.
3. (Hong Kong) Female domestic helper.
4. (LGBTQ, slang, US) An elderly gay man.^[1]

• In some lects this is the most common spoken form for aunt.
• In some regions, the spelling aunty is more common.

• aunt

• uncle

auntie (third-person singular simple present aunties, present participle auntying, simple past and past participle auntied)

1. To be or behave like the aunt of.
   • 1994, Maria Guadalupe Serna-Perez, Entrepreneurship, Women's Roles, and the Domestic Cycle:

     In the same melodrama, Madame Rotschild, a supporting character plays a similar role by "auntying" all children as a rich and powerful woman who can solve most problems in children's own homes.

   • 2003, Richard M. Lerner, Handbook of applied developmental science:

     More and more children are being "auntied" by women in the community who feel it is their duty as mothers to care for parentless children.

   • 2011, Salvatore Scibona, The End, page 72:

     She had had only one unmitigated success in bending the girl to her will over the many years she'd auntied her: She had peeled the dialect right olf Lina's tongue.

   • 2019, Keturah Kendrick, No Thanks: Black, Female, and Living in the Martyr-Free Zone:

     “I am the best auntie of any auntie that has ever auntied,” she'd say, and in doing so reshape herself into the image her community needed to see.

• Uniate