auntship

auntship noun: the status of being an aunt.

Noun

auntship (countable and uncountable, plural auntships)

The status of being an aunt.
- This was a Mrs Archer, to whom I was taught to pay homage, under the appellation of Aunt Archer; the auntship consisting in that her husband had had for a first wife a sister of my grandmother.1842, Jeremy Bentham, Works Of Jeremy Bentham
- A quick survey of Austen's novels yields an aunt's-eye view of the variety of aunts: in Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine stands corrected by Elizabeth's aunts Gardiner and Philips, who balance one another; Mrs. Norris and Lady Bertram are opposite kinds of aunts in Mansfield Park; the...1994, Regina Barreca, Fay Weldon's wicked fictions, page 62

Halliday would come and see the portrait of their ancestress; using the word ancestress because she could not remember exactly what degree of auntship or cousinship it was.2000, Angela Thirkell, A Double Affair, page 132:
Christina's letter to Mary Haydon about prospective auntship shows that she had looked forward to greater friendship.2012, Jan Marsh, Christina Rossetti: A Literary Biography:

plural	auntships

From aunt + -ship.

What does auntship mean?: Auntship means the status of being an aunt.
How do you use auntship in a sentence?: Halliday would come and see the portrait of their ancestress; using the word ancestress because she could not remember exactly what degree of auntship or cousinship it was.
What part of speech is auntship?: Auntship is a noun.
What is the plural of auntship?: The plural of auntship is auntships.

Adapted from Wiktionary: auntship (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “auntship.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/auntship. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.