aunt

   The first name of the aunt concerned normally follows this term in direct address, especially when young nephews and nieces are using it. As they become adults they are more likely to use ‘aunt’ on its own, or to make use of the first name. Both true aunts, sisters of the speaker’s father or mother, and aunts-in-law are considered eligible for the title.

   In working-class British families it is also often extended to close friends of the parents, though only young children would use the term in such a case. Middle-class speakers might qualify the word and use ‘my dear aunt’, with or without the first name.

   ‘Good aunt’, ‘sweet aunt’, and the like were possible in Shakespeare’s time according to the evidence of the plays, but this would be most unusual in modern times. It was also possible in the seventeenth century to refer to an aunt and mean a procuress or a prostitute, but such usage is obsolete.

   Flora Thompson, in Lark Rise, says that her mother was a late-comer, born when her parents were well advanced in years: ‘One of her outstanding distinctions in the eyes of her own children was that she had been born an aunt and, as soon as she could talk, had insisted upon her two nieces, both older than herself. addressing her as “Aunt Emma.”’

   In Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, Mrs Reed is Jane’s aunt and guardian, and is normally addressed by her as Aunt Reed. Early in the novel, disgusted by her aunt’s ill-treatment of her, Jane says: ‘I will never call you aunt again as long as I live,’ but years later she again calls her Aunt Reed, saying ‘I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now.’ Mrs Reed is by then on her death-bed.