grandmotherly
grandmotherly adjective: of or characteristic of grandmothers.
Adjective
grandmotherly (comparative more grandmotherly, superlative most grandmotherly)
- Of or characteristic of grandmothers.
- “Mr. Norton, your head!” he cried, a strange grandmotherly concern in his voice.1952, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man, Penguin Books (2014), page 103
- Resembling a grandmother.
- One of the maids introduced me to Miss Clifford, the housekeeper, a grandmotherly yet somehow youthful woman who offered me a cup of tea I was too nervous to accept. She gave it to me anyway, calling me “love.”2022, Hernan Diaz, Trust, Picador (2023), page 256
- Then grandmotherly, trust-inspiring 63-year-old Gertrude Pruett stopped sending out the lovely checks and it became harder and harder to get in touch with her or her son Harold.2025, Carter Wilson, Martha's Insatiable Desires, the producer, the actress, and The fabulous French Impressionists
Forms of grandmotherly
| comparative | more grandmotherly |
|---|---|
| superlative | most grandmotherly |
Origin of grandmotherly
From grandmother + -ly (adjectival suffix).
Words formed from grandmotherly
Questions about grandmotherly
- What does grandmotherly mean?
- Grandmotherly means of or characteristic of grandmothers.
- What part of speech is grandmotherly?
- Grandmotherly is an adjective.
Words near grandmotherly in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grandmotherly (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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Cite this entry: “grandmotherly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grandmotherly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.