Aunt

subs. (old cant).—1.  A bawd; a harlot (B. E. and GROSE): hence (old sayings) ‘my AUNT will feed me’ = (B. E.) ‘the bawd will find me in meat’; ‘She is one of my AUNTS that made my uncle go a-begging (or that my uncle never got any good of).’

  1604.  SHAKESPEARE, Winter’s Tale, iv. 2.

  1605.  DEKKER, The Honest Whore [DODSLEY], Old Plays (REED), iii. 260. To call you one o’ mine AUNTS, sister, were as good as call you errant whore.

  1607.  DEKKER, Northward Hoe, i. 3. Pren. May be she’s gone to Brainford. May. Inquire at one of mine AUNTS. Ibid., v. 1. Feath. Ye told me, sir, she was your kinswoman. May. Right, one of mine AUNTS.

  1607.  MIDDLETON, Michaelmas Term, iii. 1. Moth G. Then she demanded of me whether I was your worship’s AUNT or no? Let. Out, out, out!

  1608.  MIDDLETON, A Trick to Catch the Old One, II. 1. Was it not then better bestowed upon his uncle than upon one of his AUNTS?—I need not say bawd, for every one knows what AUNT stands for in the last translation.

  [1633].  ROWLEY, A Match at Midnight, iv. 1 [DODSLEY, Old Plays (REED), vii. 410]. Naming to him one of my AUNTS, a widow by Fleet-ditch. Her name is Mistress Gray, and keeps divers gentlewomen lodgers.

  1663.  KILLIGREW, The Parson’s Wedding, iii. 1. Yes, and follow her, like one of my AUNTS of the suburbs.

  1668.  SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, The Visions of Quevedo (1778), 133. They … gallant the Wife to the Park … where forty to one … they stumble upon an AUNT … or some such Reverend Goer-between.

  1678.  DRYDEN, Limberham; or, the Kind Keeper, i. 1. The easiest Fool I ever knew, next my NAUNT of Fairies in the Alchymist.

  1823.  GROSE, Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [EGAN], s.v. AUNT … a title of eminence for the senior dells, who serve for instructresses, midwives, &c. for the dells.

  2.  (old and still colloquial, esp. in U.S.A.).—An endearment or familiar address; also AUNTY: spec. (1), in nursery talk, a female ‘friend of the family’; and (2) a matronly woman: hence AUNTHOOD: cf. UNCLE.

  1592.  SHAKESPEARE, Midsummer Night’s Dream, ii. 1. The wisest AUNT telling the saddest tale.

  1614.  JONSON, Bartholomew Fair, ii. 1. Over. Let us drink, boy, with my love, thy AUNT here … Ale for thine AUNT, boy.

  1861.  H. B. STOWE, The Pearl of Orr’s Island, 21. These universally useful persons receive among us the title of AUNT by a sort of general consent … They are nobody’s AUNTS in particular, but AUNTS to human nature generally.

  1862.  CRAIK, Domestic Stories, 373. This sort of universal AUNTHOOD to the whole neighbourhood was by no means disagreeable to Miss Milly.

  1883.  Harper’s Magazine, Oct., 728. 2. The negro no longer submits with grace to be called ‘uncle’ and ‘aunty’ as of yore.

  3.  (Oxford and Cambridge: obsolete).—The sister university.

  1655.  FULLER, The Church History of Britain, II. i. 308. The Sons of our AUNT are loth to consent that one who was taught Cambridge, should teach in Oxford.

  1701.  PEPYS, Correspondence, 403. An humble present of mine, though a Cambridge man, to my dear AUNT, the University of Oxford.

  PHRASES.  ‘If my AUNT had been my uncle what would have happened then’? (a retort on inconsequent talk); to go and see one’s AUNT = to go to the W.C. (see MRS. JONES).

  1834.  T. P. THOMPSON, Exercises, Political and Others (1842), III. 45, note. What might have happened afterwards, is only known to those who can tell WHAT WOULD HAVE COME TO PASS IF YOUR AUNT HAD BEEN YOUR UNCLE.