auntishly

comparative more auntishly · superlative most auntishly

1. In an auntish manner.

   Besides, my matronly character, years, &c. entitle me to treat you if not maternally, a little auntishly.

   1802 June 26, Anne Grant, “Letter XXXIV. To Miss Dunbar, Boath.”, in Letters from the Mountains; Being the Real Correspondence of a Lady, Between the Years 1773 and 1807, 2nd edition, volume III, London: […] Luke Hansard & Sons, for Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, […]; J[ohn] Hatchard, […]; and Mrs. Cook, […], published 1807, page 130

   5 more examples

   “[…] I saw a girl buying chops in a butcher’s while I was waiting and I thought Eric ought to paint her. He’d go mad at sight of her. She had everything a painter wants.” […] “What do you mean by everything?” she auntishly asked, becoming aware of what Val had said about a girl buying chops. “Raw beauty,” he teased, “unadorned and to be adorned by the painter; myth-making face; body excavated from mythology too.[…]”

   [1957], Rhys Davies, chapter 5, in The Perishable Quality, Melbourne, Vic.; London; Toronto, Ont.: Heinemann, page 124

   Whatever Mother and Father, and Aunt Rosa Bona auntishly doting and chirruping under her platter of feathers, may believe, I have never really seen their faces.

   1963, Hal Porter, The Watcher on the Cast-Iron Balcony: An Australian Autobiography, London: Faber and Faber, […], page 32

   There were French and German horses among the entries and a great many foreign visitors – ‘quite a babel of tongues on the roof of the grandstand’ clucked The Times rather auntishly.

   1968, Ivor Herbert, Patricia Smyly, “The Lamb”, in The Winter Kings, Pelham Books, published 1969, →ISBN, page 26

   It was so pleasant being bossed auntishly by Truman, told when to come and see him, when to go off by ourselves, where to eat and how we were to take whirlpool mineral baths, steam and massage at the Spa Hotel.

   1968 February 21, Christopher Isherwood, edited by Katherine Bucknell, Diaries, volumes two (1960–1969; The Sixties), London: Chatto & Windus, published 2010, →ISBN, page 497

   I need that assurance, will she ruffle self’s curls and smile auntishly, or will her caress mean something?

   1969, Walter Harris, Clovis, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 22