materteral

comparative more materteral · superlative most materteral

1. humorousrareOf or relating to, or in the manner of, an aunt.First known use early 19th c.

   You can picture the stately materteral form— / A full-blown Atè, big with doom!

   1867, J[oseph] Noel Paton, “Perdita”, in Spindrift, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 6

   5 more examples

   [A] venerable matron and her virgin sister, who had passed the great climacteric, […] exclaimed with maternal and materteral anxiety, that the legislature ought to prohibit such dangerous sports; since the unavoidable accidents, to which human life and limb are exposed, are quite sufficient without increasing the number of them by wantonness and temerity.

   1823 December, [W. Taylor], “Art. 22. An Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises; Intended to Develope and Improve the Physical Powers of Man. By Peter Henry Clias, […] Sherwood and Co. 1823. Art. 23. Instructions in All Kinds of Gymnastic Exercises, as Taught and Practised in the Gymnastic Institutions of Germany. […] By a Military Officer. […] Whittakers. 1823. [book reviews]”, in The Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal, Enlarged, volume CII, London: […] A[ndrew] & R[obert] Spottiswoode, […], →OCLC, page 447

   An aunt is always a jocular subject. If a man foozles at golf, he does not say, 'Oh, my cousin, my brother, or my grandfather!' He says, 'Oh, my aunt!' Possibly, general, the Persian is equally deficient in the materteral instinct.

   1900 October, Max Pemberton, “Pro Patria. [Chapter] XVI.”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume XXIV, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Frank A[ndrew] Munsey, […], →OCLC, page 79, column 1

   [T]he pure line theory demands that the offspring shall be as highly correlated with the grand-maternal or the materteral organism as with the maternal, and […] this condition was satisfied in neither case.

   1928 December 22, Karl Pearson, “Eugenics Now and Hereafter”, in Nature: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science, volume 122, number 3086, London: Macmillan & Co., […], →OCLC, page 954, column 2

   And one might say, "Without prejudice to the question whether I really have inherited ten million dollars from a rich aunt, I propose to talk and act as if I had: I will write checks for vast amounts …" It may be that stipulations about parts and wholes are, in some way that undermines my materteral analogies, unlike stipulations about aunts and legacies.

   1990, Peter Van Inwagen, “Preface”, in Material Beings, Ithaca, N.Y.; London: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 9

   Only some insistent pleading (materteral rather than avuncular) had changed their mind.

   2004, S[aif] Rahman, “Pilgrim Isles [A Kindness at Random]”, in Archipelago, [United Kingdom]: Twenty First Century Publishers, →ISBN, page 150

   Synonyms: auntish, auntlike, auntyish, materterine