Word.ws English Dictionary

big-brotherly

big-brotherly adjective: of or characteristic of older brothers.

Adjective

big-brotherly

  1. Of or characteristic of older brothers.
    • Coordinate term: big-sisterly
    • “I don’t blame you, boys, for sending Lorraine to Coventry”, he began, in a big-brotherly style.1898, Green Garry, page 84
    Synonyms:
    big-brotherish

Examples of big-brotherly in a sentence

  • And it came to me that Gouverneur Morris often wrote as a high-born American man of the world about forty, in a big-brotherly mood, might talk to a nice girl of sixteen.1923, The Century, page 29:
  • [...] a big-brotherly air of amusement [...]1927, The Sea Gull, page 11:

Synonyms of big-brotherly

Origin of big-brotherly

From big brother + -ly (adjectival suffix).

Words formed from big-brotherly

Questions about big-brotherly

What does big-brotherly mean?
Big-brotherly means of or characteristic of older brothers.
How do you use big-brotherly in a sentence?
And it came to me that Gouverneur Morris often wrote as a high-born American man of the world about forty, in a big-brotherly mood, might talk to a nice girl of sixteen.
What part of speech is big-brotherly?
Big-brotherly is an adjective.

Words near big-brotherly in the dictionary

  1. big-brained
  2. big-breasted
  3. big-brotherish
  4. big-brotherism
  5. big-brotherliness
  6. big-brotherly
  7. big-character poster
  8. big-character posters
  9. big-dick energy
  10. big-endian
  11. big-eyed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: big-brotherly (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.

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