Word.ws English Dictionary

grandmotherism

grandmotherism noun: grandmotherly behaviour; mild or weak authoritarianism.

Noun

grandmotherism (uncountable)

  1. grandmotherly behaviour; mild or weak authoritarianism
    • […] but I hold that strong evils require strong measures to suppress them, and there is no reason why professional etiquette should be another name for grandmotherism.1908, British Dental Journal, volume 29, page 202
    • Bureaucracy begins as well-meaning grandmotherism and ends as tyranny.1932, Arthur Bryant, The Spirit of Conservatism, page 32

Origin of grandmotherism

From grandmother + -ism.

Questions about grandmotherism

What does grandmotherism mean?
Grandmotherism means grandmotherly behaviour; mild or weak authoritarianism.
What part of speech is grandmotherism?
Grandmotherism is a noun.

Words near grandmotherism in the dictionary

  1. grandmotherfucker
  2. grandmotherfuckers
  3. grandmotherhood
  4. grandmothering
  5. grandmotherish
  6. grandmotherism
  7. grandmotherless
  8. grandmotherliness
  9. grandmotherly
  10. grandmothers
  11. grandmothers-in-law

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grandmotherism (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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