avuncular
/əˈvʌŋkjʊlɚ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.82 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
In the manner of an uncle, pertaining to an uncle.
adj
Kind, genial, benevolent, or tolerant.
Example Sentences
- "Both uncle Frank and uncle Stephen Austen had made it a point of principle to be rigorously unsentimental in the discharge of their avuncular obligations."
- "In 2021, the Times described you as an “avuncular public intellectual.” How do you feel about that label? [Stephen Fry:] Oh my lordy lord. Avuncular gives me great pleasure."
- "Bald, obliging, and on his way to training classes for his Irish setter, Mr. Telle is more the portrait of avuncular Norwegian affability than a would-be climate warrior."
- "But Jackson had an avuncular feeling for the two younger men and he assumed it was his duty to pull them from their gloom."
- "A man with such a nice, avuncular personality would not blow up the world."
- "I imagine the Dreamward’s Hotel Manager to be an avuncular Norwegian with a rag sweater and a soothing odor of Borkum Rif about him, a guy w/o sunglasses or hauteur who throws open the pressurized doors to the Dreamward’s Bridge and galley and Vacuum Sewage System and personally takes me through, offering pithy and quotable answers to questions before I’ve even asked them."
Etymology
Word Breakdown
- Root: avunculāris
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /əˈvʌŋkjʊlɚ/
- British English: /əˈvʌŋkjʊlə/
Inflected Forms
more avuncular (comparative)
most avuncular (superlative)