auntliness

English

Etymology

From auntly +‎ -ness.

Noun

auntliness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being auntly.
   • 1895 May 7, “The Vanishing Spinster Aunt”, in Boston Evening Transcript, Boston, Mass.: The Boston Transcript Company, page 4:

     In the good old days no family was complete without a spinster aunt to turn to in seasons of distress and grief, measles, whooping-cough, visiting, absence of parents, or unexpected company. More than any other woman, possibly, the spinster aunt has become New. […] As a type of auntliness she is no longer plentiful, ubiquitous and tenderly considerate of a niecely sneeze or a nephewish whimper, of a brother-in-law’s slippers or a sister-in-law’s gruel or tea.

   • 1919, Sydney Cope Morgan, “Aunt Susan”, in When Leaves were Green, Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd.; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd., page 98:

     Rather, being the sole survivor of her own family, and sister of Mr. Branksome’s late father, she became “great” in her auntliness so far as the second generation was concerned, and adopted a grandmotherly attitude towards them, which aroused the enduring scorn of their maternal grandmother.

   • 2012, Claudia L. Johnson, “Jane Austen’s Magic”, in Jane Austen’s Cults and Cultures, Chicago, Ill., London: The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 97:

     And the fact that [Jane] Austen was understood as unassuming and unaspiring, while it certainly speaks to the placidity of womenfolk in the good old days, hints at her very particular and marvelous self-sufficiency, a sufficiency that her sexlessness and auntliness together keep from being threatening: […]