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Avuncular   Listen
adjective
Avuncular  adj.  Of or pertaining to an uncle. "In these rare instances, the law of pedigree, whether direct or avuncular, gives way."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Avuncular" Quotes from Famous Books



... bubbled over in his eyes when his hand was good acted as an efficient danger-signal to his grateful opponents. Two weeks of poker had led to his writing to his uncle a distressed, but confident, request for more funds; and the avuncular foot had come down with a joyous bang. Taking his stand on the evils of gambling, Sir Thomas had changed the conditions of the money-market for his nephew with a thoroughness that effectually prevented the possibility of the youth's being again caught by the fascinations of poker. The ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... however, where honesty is in the series, is a slow proceeding, and the organic changes are very complicated. As I know, however, you attach value to the effect you produce in that coat, I'll go and recover it. I shall not need Terence or Juvenal till we come back, and I'll leave them in the avuncular hands ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... months later the crisis came. King Leopold determined to make a bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of royal vigour and avuncular authority. In an abrupt, an almost peremptory letter, he laid his case, once more, before his niece. "You know from experience," he wrote, "that I NEVER ASK ANYTHING OF YOU... But, as I said before, if we are not careful we may see ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... habiliments of the genial saint was too much for his imagination. It left him without the power to set James straight in the matter, and Uncle Joe was immediately accepted as Santy by the expectant Sykeses, all of whom revealed a tremendous interest in the avuncular absentee. They even appeared to be properly apprehensive, and crowded a little closer to the knees of the grown- ups, all the while eyeing the door at the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... his affairs, for an amusing series of fourteen letters has been preserved at Beaumanor, until lately the seat of Sir William's descendants, in which the poet asks sometimes for payment of a quarterly stipend of L10, sometimes for a formal loan, sometimes for the help of his avuncular Maecenas. It seems a fair inference from this variety of requests that, since Herrick's share of his father's property could hardly have yielded a yearly income of L40, he was allowed to draw on his capital for this sum, but that his uncle and Lady Herrick occasionally ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... youthful flower, and I was incontinently smitten with curiosity respecting the dark purpose he might veil in this way. There is, to me, a peculiar and possibly rather a childish fascination in watching my more intimate friends unobserved, and, curiously enough, I had never before studied the avuncular back view. I found something singularly entertaining in the study of the graceful contour of his new frock coat, and in the cheerful carriage of his cane. He paraded, a dignified procession of one, some way down the Arcade, hesitated for a moment outside a jeweller's shop, and ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells

... gracefully unburdened himself of a fervent curse directed at Shirley's avuncular relative; whereupon that young lady promptly left the window ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... the next place, was the nature of this regard? Was it merely avuncular, or something different? Drayton assured himself that it was the former. He was a man of the world, and had done with passions. The idea of his falling in love made him smile in a deprecatory manner. That the object of such love should be a girl eighteen years his junior rendered ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne



Words linked to "Avuncular" :   uncle



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