Word.ws English Dictionary

nuncle

nuncle noun: uncle.

Noun

nuncle (plural nuncles)

  1. (archaic, dialectal) Uncle.
    • Fool: Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman?1605, Shakespeare, King Lear
  2. Aunt or uncle; sibling of a parent (regardless of gender).

Verb

nuncle (third-person singular simple present nuncles, present participle nuncling, simple past and past participle nuncled)

  1. (England, regional) To cheat, deceive.

Forms of nuncle

Noun
pluralnuncles
Verb
third-person singular presentnuncles
present participlenuncling
past participlenuncled
pastnuncled

Origin of nuncle

From rebracketing of phrases an uncle, mine uncle, thine uncle, etc. Compare neam and naunt, as well as French mononcle. For the verb, OED suggests an evolution in sense "to claim to be one's uncle" > "to cheat". It compares this derivation with cozen, which it derives from cousin. For the technical anthropological sense, compare nibling.

Words formed from nuncle

Questions about nuncle

What does nuncle mean?
Nuncle means uncle.
What part of speech is nuncle?
Nuncle can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of nuncle?
The plural of nuncle is nuncles.

Words near nuncle in the dictionary

  1. nuncio
  2. nuncios
  3. nuncioship
  4. nuncioships
  5. nuncius
  6. nuncle
  7. nuncled
  8. nuncles
  9. nuncling
  10. Nuncs
  11. nuncupate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nuncle (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:

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