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Great-uncle   Listen
noun
great-uncle  n.  An uncle of one's father or mother.
Synonyms: granduncle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Great-uncle" Quotes from Famous Books



... with her much-feared Great-uncle Henry. He nodded to her, and drew out from the bottom of the wagon a warm, large cape, which he slipped over her shoulders. "The women folks were afraid you'd git cold drivin'," he explained. He then lifted her high to the seat, tossed ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... of her face a small and delicate oval. In the big hall, with a roaring fire in the wide fireplace, she dispensed comforting hospitality to the adoring Admiral. And when she had given him his tea she sat on a stool at his feet. "Oh, wise great-uncle," she said, "I am going to tell ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey

... his great-uncle, known throughout the Adirondack region as "the lumber king," had offered to take him, train him to the lumber business, and make him his heir. An eccentric, childless widower, commonly believed to have broken ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... for himself, Henry could not be content firmly and quietly to enforce the law as it had been declared at Clarendon. He had in his character much of the orderly spirit of his grandfather, Henry I., but he had also something of the violence of his great-uncle, William II. A certain John the Marshal had a suit against the archbishop, and when the archbishop refused to plead in a lay court, the king's council sentenced him to a fine of 500l. Then Henry ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner

... revolutionary. As much a constitutionalist as Hampden or Washington, he was so by temperament and by inheritance. The tradition of parliamentary service had been in his family for two generations. Two years after his birth his great-uncle, John Edward Redmond, from whom he got his baptismal names, was elected unopposed as Liberal member for the borough of Wexford, where his statue stands in the market-place, commemorating good service rendered. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... had bought a gross of the glasses, thereby reminding me of a generous but eccentric great-uncle of ours who had a passion for attending auctions, and once, by error, in buying, as he supposed, twelve yellow earthenware bowls, found himself confronted by twelve dozen. Thus grandmother's storeroom literally had a golden lining, and my entire childhood was pervaded with these bowls, ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... Hillingden, a descendant of the Ferrar family, through his great-uncle, Dr. John Mapletoft, (see Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors), who was the great-nephew of Nicholas Ferrar, possessed one of the three curious volumes arranged by members of the family, {446} viz.—A Digest of the History of our Saviour's Life, with numerous ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various

... VII of England, broke the power of his nobility. His people aided him, for they were wearied of the pressure of feudalism, and he concentrated the whole power of the realm in his own hands. He took up the projects which had been left untouched since the death of his great-uncle, Prince Henry the Navigator. The dream of his life was to find the direct sea route to India. To achieve this end he collected at his Court all the learned men he could attract; he improved the methods of shipbuilding, and ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens

... drifted into camp. He was very smooth-skinned, very dignified, very venerable. He was pure Swahili, though of the savage branch of that race, and had none of the negro type of countenance. In fact, so like was he in face, hair, short square beard and genial dignity to a certain great-uncle of mine that it was very hard to remember that he had on only a small strip of cloth, that he was cherishing as a great treasure a piece of soap box he had salvaged from the shore, and that his skin was red chocolate. I felt inclined to talk to him as to an intellectual equal, especially ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk—a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived—which had been the scene—so at ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... the case for five hundred dollars. I cannot connect Abel Strout with this shake-down—for that is what it is. The woman up in Michigan never heard of her great-uncle's property down here till this little Schrimpe told her. But we can't connect him with Strout. Strout's skirts are clear. And this Schrimpe had a perfect legal right to drum up trade. He's that kind of lawyer," said ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... tradition, entered the army, loaded himself with debt, was forced to sell out, took refuge in the Marines, and was lost on the Dogger Bank in the war-ship Minotaur. If he did not marry below him, like his father, his sister, and a certain great-uncle William, it was perhaps because he never ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... shocking thing," continued Aunt Theresa, taking off her bonnet; "for she had a great-uncle in Hanwell, and her grandfather cut his throat. I suppose it ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... youngest sister, Julia, was married to Marcus Atius Balbus, and their daughter Atia, again, was married to Caius Octavius, a nobleman of the plebeian order. From this marriage sprang the present Octavius, who afterwards became the Emperor Augustus. He was mainly educated by his great-uncle, was advanced to the patrician order, and was adopted as his son and heir; so that his full and proper designation at this time was Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus. The text gives a right taste of the man, who always stood firm as a post against Antony, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was really coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the political events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and on the Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising. Was he rich? Economical ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... "Probably my great-uncle," he said. "In this part of the world," he went on, "there is no one who knows me beyond mere acquaintanceship, except the ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... regarded as a joke. His pleasantries rather damped my interest in deep-sea fishing, however, and I cast about for something else. It was at this juncture that I thought of Four-Pools Plantation. "Four-Pools" was the somewhat fantastic name of a stock farm in the Shenandoah Valley, belonging to a great-uncle whom I had not seen since I was ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... celebrations were over that we noticed that anything was wrong in Fairfield. 'T was shoemaker who told me first about it one morning at the Fox and Grapes. "You know my great-great-uncle?" he ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... square sail of the gundalow, And idle lay the useless oars. Our mother, while she turned her wheel Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, Told how the Indian hordes came down At midnight on Cochecho town, And how her own great-uncle bore His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. Recalling, in her fitting phrase, So rich and picturesque and free (The common unrhymed poetry Of simple life and country ways), The story of her early days,— She made us welcome ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... a certain ancestor—or was he only a great-uncle?—I forget—had a taste for mechanics, even to the craze of the perpetual motion, and could work well in brass and iron. The creature was probably some invention of his. It was a real marvel how, after so many years of idleness, it could ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... for all manly exercises, it might have been expected that my books saw little of me; but, on the contrary, I found in them a pleasure and a companionship that has lasted through my life. Thus it happened that I made considerable progress. So much so that the good Bishop, my great-uncle, often flattered me with the ambitious hopes of some day filling his Episcopal chair—a hope that, I need ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... our celebrations were over that we noticed that anything was wrong in Fairfield. 'Twas shoemaker who told me first about it one morning at the "Fox and Grapes." "You know my great great-uncle?" he said to me. ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... 'twas my duty to speak to you about it. It was my great-uncle, Captain Silas Hardin. He was ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... councillor of the parliament, a great-uncle of madame, Monsieur de Boisfrelon. After the Revolution he fell into dotage; but he did not die until 1832, at the age of ninety-six. Madame could not at first make up her mind to let his rooms to a stranger, but she finds she cannot afford to lose ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... years later the Damascus Affair stirred the Jewish world to determined action, designed to stamp it out once for all. To wage war against this superstitious belief seems to have fallen to the lot of several of Levinsohn's family. In 1757, when it asserted itself in Yampoly, Volhynia, his great-uncle, by the unanimous consent of the Council of the Four Countries, was sent to Rome to intercede with the Pope. After six years of pleading, he returned to his native land with a signed statement addressed to the Polish ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... had been old Miss Hatchard's great-uncle; though she would undoubtedly have reversed the phrase, and put forward, as her only claim to distinction, the fact that she was his great-niece. For Honorius Hatchard, in the early years of the nineteenth ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton

... design, with the portrait of a stout simpering lady in enamel on the cover. Miss Heredith directed Colwyn's attention to the portrait, remarking that it was a likeness of a princess of the reigning house, who had given it and the box to her great-uncle, Captain ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... into a definite purpose of seeking my fortune on the sea, was an old-fashioned glass ship, about eighteen inches long, and of French manufacture, which my father, some thirty years before, had brought home from Hamburg as a present to a great-uncle of mine: Senator Wellingborough, who had died a member of Congress in the days of the old Constitution, and after whom I had the honor of being named. Upon the decease of the Senator, the ship was returned ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... shall surely be late," said the young wife as she entered the elegant library where her husband sat reading a choice volume of poetry. It was Clara's first Sabbath in her new home. She had but lately left the sheltering roof of a kind great-uncle, who had taken her to his home when a lonely orphan, and reared her very tenderly, surrounding her with every comfort and many of the elegancies of life. A gentleman some years her senior had won her heart's affection, ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... maiden name was Hale. At the beginning of last century she and her two brothers, William and Robert Hale, were living in Colchester. William Hale moved to Homerton, and became a silk manufacturer in Spitalfields. Homerton was then a favourite suburb for rich City people. My great-uncle's beautiful Georgian house had a marble bath and a Grecian temple in the big garden. Of Robert Hale and my grandfather I know nothing. The supposed connexion with the Carolean Chief ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... the accuser of the other three. Investigation of his origin showed that a male cousin had died raving mad, a female cousin had died in an asylum, a great-uncle on the maternal side had been crazy and had committed suicide; another cousin was weak-minded and subject to fits; another, a deaf-mute, had died in an asylum; another great-uncle was a drunkard and a loafer; one sister was an idiot, the other ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero

... certain degree of kinship or consanguinity shall marry. If Dr Durkheim's theory of the origin of the eight-class system is correct, it should also apply to the Dieri. Now the rule that a man must marry his maternal great-uncle's daughter clearly prevents intermarriage with one of the mother's totem; but this cannot be the object of the rule, for it is prevented already by the phratry system. Dr Durkheim's theory therefore finds no support in ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas

... exemplary that, if he fails to meet the heroic needs of the hour, the world is disposed not to reproach him, but rather to feel pity for the young ruler who has had thrust upon him such an insoluble problem. His character recalls somewhat that of his great-uncle Alexander I. We see the same vague aspiration after grand ideals, and the same despotic methods in dealing with things in the concrete. No general amnesty attended his coronation, no act of clemency has been extended to political exiles. Men and women whose hairs have whitened in Siberia have not ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... sunless morning. The dream, with its dream-ages of duration, had not crossed the shallows of the dawn. Quickly he gathered his few things into his knapsack—fortunately their number had nowise increased—took his great-uncle's bamboo, saw that his money was safe, stole quietly down the stair, and softly and safely out of the house, and, ere any of its inhabitants were astir, had left the village by the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... succeeded to his great-uncle—an antiquary and recluse—a disappointed bachelor, and latterly, 'twas said, somewhat of a miser, which was fortunate for my friend, who had very ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease

... it?—a Circe in the case. It Will Be All Right is an exercise in the picaresque school, lacking none of the author's usual raciness and vigour; but, if at the end we find Mr. Fergus Rowley still unable to reinstate himself, and left with no better consolation than the "Heigho" of his famous great-uncle Anthony, the fault, I feel, was his own. He ought to have looked in at the Kingsway Theatre and provided himself with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various

... but it boils down to this," he said. "I'm looking for a Patrick Henry Considine, but I don't know what he's like. I don't know whether there is such a chap, in fact, but if there is, I've got to find him. A great-uncle of mine died out here a long while ago, and we believe he left a son; and if there is such a son, it turns out that he would be entitled to a heap of money. It has been heaping up for years in Chancery, and all that sort of thing, you know," he added, vaguely. "My people ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... Chinese blood. His genealogy reveals several persons remarkable for intellect and independence of character, notably a Philippine Eloise and Abelard, who, drawn together by their common enthusiasm for study and learning, became his maternal grandparents, as well as a great-uncle who was a traveler and student and who directed the boy's early studies. Thus from the beginning his training was exceptional, while his mind was stirred by the trouble already brewing in his community, and from the earliest hours of consciousness he saw about him the wrongs ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... that, dear Lady Killpatrick. You are not to see that, Lord Colambre—that's a little blot in our scutcheon. You know, Isabel, we never talk of that prudent match of great-uncle John's; what could he expect by marrying into THAT family, where you know all the men were not SANS PEUR, and none of ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... more beautiful than ever, and of the gentleness of an angel, taking continuous pleasure in her little son—indeed, Anna had said this was her only joy, to caress the illustrious infant and call him Paul—such name he had been christened—after a great-uncle. And again Dmitry lowered his eyes, and again Paul looked out of ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... "Nicholas Nickleby" never appealed to me. It was necessary to skip that. When the people were gentlemanly and ladylike, they became great bores. But what young reader of Dickens can forget the hostile attitude of Mr. Lillyvick, great-uncle of the little Miss Kenwigses, when Nicholas attempted to teach them French? As one grows older, even Mr. Squeers and 'Tilda give one less real delight; but think of the first discovery of them, and it is like Balboa's—or was it Cortez's?—discovery of the Pacific in Keats's sonnet. ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... great-uncle, my husband," she said. "He was the cleverest man I ever came across. He had a real ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... resolved, or once denied; strongly intent on business, little on pleasure; by these virtues he engaged the attention of all men And the people, sensible that they owed their liberty and very existence to his family, and remembering that his great-uncle Maurice had been able, even in more early youth, to defend them against the exorbitant power of Spain, were desirous of raising this prince to all the authority of his ancestors; and hoped, from his valor and conduct alone, to receive protection ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... - Yours received; also interesting copy of P. WHISTLES. 'In the multitude of councillors the Bible declares there is wisdom,' said my great-uncle, 'but I have always found in them distraction.' It is extraordinary how tastes vary: these proofs have been handed about, it appears, and I have had several letters; and - distraction. 'AEsop: the Miller and the ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Prince, Frederick William! Long live our deliverer, our father!" That ideal, which had lain so long in the secret depths of his soul, in fact ever since he had known thought; that ideal to which he had already dedicated himself, when he had stood as a boy by the corpse of his great-uncle Gustavus Adolphus; that ideal was now truth and reality before his inward vision. He was a Prince wreathed in glory; he was beloved by his ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... some years ago by a grand-niece of Froebel, who endeavors thus to carry out the principles of her great-uncle, whose instruction and companionship she enjoyed in her youth. Still in the prime of life, of gracious and winning presence, full of noble enthusiasm in doing good and of love for children; a devoted ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton

... young girl named Mary Duff. At ten his cousin, Margaret Parker, excited in him a strange, un-childish passion. At fifteen came one of the greatest crises of his life, when he became enamored of Mary Chaworth, whose grand-father had been killed in a duel by Byron's great-uncle. Young as he was, he would have married her immediately; but Miss Chaworth was two years older than he, and absolutely refused to take seriously the devotion of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... old Aldclyffe family on the maternal side. Her mother married a Bradleigh—a mere nobody at that time—and was on that account cut by her relations. But very singularly the other branch of the family died out one by one—three of them, and Miss Aldclyffe's great-uncle then left all his property, including this estate, to Captain Bradleigh and his wife—Miss Aldclyffe's father and mother—on condition that they took the old family name as well. There's all about it in the "Landed Gentry." 'Tis a thing ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... who ever lived—and to me the dearest." Jolyon's voice had lost its irony, and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly, "He was just and tenacious, tender and young at heart. You remember him, and I remember him. Pass to the others! Your great-uncle James, that's young Val's grandfather, had a son called Soames—whereby hangs a tale of no love lost, and I don't think I'll tell it you. James and the other eight children of 'Superior Dosset,' of whom there are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian England, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... a boat on the river En[i]peus (3 syl.). Here they were discovered and brought up by a herdsman (Romulus and Remus were brought up by a shepherd), and when grown to manhood, they put to death their mother-in-law, who had caused them to be exposed (as Romulus and Remus put to death their great-uncle, Amulius). ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... no one but my Great-uncle Rodman Warfield. I had to get something to do—so I came here, and Uncle Rod went to live with a ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... How his grandfather, in the early days of the great war, when there was much distress and crime in the Vale, and the magistrates had been threatened by the mob, had ridden in with a big stick in his hand, and held the petty sessions by himself. How his great-uncle, the rector, had encountered and laid the last ghost, who had frightened the old women, male and female, of the parish out of their senses, and who turned out to be the blacksmith's apprentice disguised in drink and a white sheet. It was Benjy, too, who saddled Tom's ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... my mother was born, Margaret, the eldest daughter of Robert, your great-great-uncle: he married one of the daughters of Rowland Eyes, of Bradway, in the same county of Derby, by whom he had twelve sons and two daughters: that family remains ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe

... of this place, who is in his 80th year, is related to this family. The said William Chapman being his great-uncle (maternal). ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... not mind it for a time; but papa wants him, besides, to take to the business in earnest. You know, my great-uncle, Robert Mervyn, left Robert all his fortune, quite in his own hands; and papa says that if he were to put that into the distillery it would do the business great good, and that Robert would be one of the richest men in England in ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... had a great-uncle who was known as Uncle Billy. He was the oldest of all the members of the Meadow Mouse family that lived under the snow near the brook. Hobbling along through one of the tunnels beneath the seven crusts of snow he happened to meet Master Meadow Mouse as he was returning from ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey

... at Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, of which his great-grandfather and great-uncle ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "So, our friend Poulain was once called in by you to attend old M. Pillerault, the Countess Popinot's great-uncle; that is one of your claims to my devotion. Poulain goes to see your landlord (mark this!) once a fortnight; he learned all these particulars from him. M. Pillerault was present at his grand-nephew's wedding—for he is an uncle with money to leave; he has an income of fifteen thousand francs, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... place. You remember the house—enormous, tidy, hideous, uncomfortable. Well, we had such a dinner last night after I arrived—soup, fish, everything popped on to the table for Great-uncle John to carve at one end, and Great-aunt Maria at the other! A regular aquarium specimen of turbot sat on its dish opposite him, while Aunt Maria had a huge lot of soles. And there wasn't any need, because there were four men-servants in the room who could easily have done it ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... conspicuous for her beauty and impulsive, violent temper, having quarrelled with her excellent sister, Dorothea Fryer, at whose house in Staffordshire she was staying, suddenly set off to London on a visit to her great-uncle, the Rev. John Plymley, prebend of the Collegiate Church at Wolverhampton, and Chaplain of Morden College, Blackheath. She journeyed by the ordinary conveyance, the Gee-Ho, a large stage-waggon drawn by a team of six horses, ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde

... the honour of knighthood; a ceremony which every gentleman in that age passed through before he was admitted to the use of arms, and which was even deemed requisite for the greatest princes. He intended to receive his admission from his great-uncle, David, King of Scotland; and for that purpose he passed through England with a great retinue, and was attended by the most considerable of his partisans. He remained some time with the King of Scotland; made incursions into England; and by his dexterity ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... period, then not so dim with time but that the figures of it were more than tragic shadows; and for a week there was no meal in that house to which she sat down earlier than half an hour Jate. She had a rightful property-interest in the Revolution, her own great-uncle having been one of those who "suffered;" not, however, under the guillotine; for to Georges Meilhac appertained the rare distinction of death by accident on the day when the business-like young Bonaparte played upon the mob ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... caused them both no little perplexity. The Nevitt estate had lost its direct heir, and that of Leah Nevitt was next in succession, after an old great-uncle, who sent for the boy to be brought up in English ways and usages. Sir Wyndham Nevitt was not a Friend, though several branches of the family were. And if Philemon Henry failed, the next heir was a dissolute fellow up in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... part and whose unconsciousness I should very soon return to share. Or, perhaps, while I was asleep I had returned without the least effort to an earlier stage in my life, now for ever outgrown; and had come under the thrall of one of my childish terrors, such as that old terror of my great-uncle's pulling my curls, which was effectually dispelled on the day—the dawn of a new era to me—on which they were finally cropped from my head. I had forgotten that event during my sleep; I remembered it ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... the metropolis intoxicates me." With that avowal the irresistible Pedgift placed a chair for his patron, and issued his orders cheerfully to his viceroy, the head-waiter. "Iced punch, William, after the soup. I answer for the punch, Mr. Armadale; it's made after a recipe of my great-uncle's. He kept a tavern, and founded the fortunes of the family. I don't mind telling you the Pedgifts have had a publican among them; there's no false pride about me. 'Worth makes the man (as Pope says) and want of it the fellow; the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... trees, such petulant fingering of errant creepers upon the windows, when he stayed here during the holidays from school at Harchester, on furlough from his regiment, and, later, on long leave from India, during his wonderful little great-uncle's lifetime. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... ago," he began, "since I came into my property, Heatherleigh Hall, near Carlisle, Cumberland. It was left me by my great-uncle, General Wimpole, whom I had never seen, but who had made me his heir in preference to his other nephews, owing to my reputed likeness to an aunt, to whom he was greatly attached. Of course I was much envied, and I dare ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... passed since I had laid the body of my great-uncle, Captain John Carter, of Virginia, away from the sight of men in that strange mausoleum in ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... in time to witness my great-uncle's last moments. He recognised me, clasped me to his breast, blessed me at the same time as Edmee, and put my hand ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various

... great-uncle, Philip," said the old man, surveying his young kinsman with an interest inspired by the ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger

... leave was nearly up, and I had to set off to rejoin my ship, allowing myself a few days to spend in London. Jane advised me to stop at Bristol to visit our great-uncle, Sir Hurricane Tempest, but I replied that I did not think the old gentleman would care about seeing me, and I certainly should not find any pleasure in ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... high caste. Her name was Sultana. I have never heard of any other name. Joseph Garrow, my father-in-law, was sent to England at an early age, and never again saw either of his parents, who both died young. His grandfather was an old Scotch schoolmaster at Hadley, near Barnet, and his great-uncle was the well known Judge Garrow. My father-in-law carried about with him very unmistakable evidence of his eastern origin in his yellow skin, and the tinge of the white of his eyes, which was almost that of an Indian. He had been educated for the bar, but had never ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... espied him, and, attracted by his winning manners, patted him on the head and said, "You'll be a great man in your day, if you live." But when he found out who the child was, he wanted to carry him off to Denmark with him. To this the boy's great-uncle, Sture, raised serious objections, and lest the king should use some treachery, hurried Gustavus out of the way at once.[6] In the very next year, 1501, occurred the rebellion against Hans, which resulted ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson

... meeting with Maurice, she ate her lunch with a glance every few minutes at her great-uncle Allan on the opposite wall. A very black portrait, it seemed only a meaningless blur till in a certain light the strong face and stern eyes shone out of the surrounding gloom with startling effect. She sometimes wondered rather anxiously ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... point is that you are safe. By the way, I hope you have kept your son at your side; for I have now received the information about which I dropped you some hints. It appears that he inherits from a great-uncle (one Silvanus Tellworthy) certain American estates, of which you and a Captain Runacles, of Harwich, are the legal administrators. I fancy this has been kept from you; and, if so, a descent upon Harwich may be used to furnish you with a provision for your old age. Still, there is a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... unused boudoir over whose chimney-piece hung a portrait of a young man in a powdered wig and a brocaded waistcoat. I was struck with his resemblance to my companion while our guide introduced him. "This is Mr. Clement Searle, Mr. Searle's great-uncle, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He died young, poor gentleman; he perished ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... time just mentioned, the orphaned Ruth had appeared at her great-uncle's mill on the Lumano River, near Cheslow, in one of the New England States, and had been taken in by the miserly old miller rather under protest. But Aunt Alvirah Boggs, who was Uncle Jabez Potter's housekeeper, ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... His great-uncle, William, Lord Byron of Rochdale and Newstead Abbey, had died, and the big-eyed, lame boy was the nearest heir—in fact, the only living male who bore the family-name. The next day at school, when the master called the roll and mentioned his name with the prefix "Dominus," the lad did ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... of Mme. de Beauseant. He had married the daughter of Chevalier de Rastignac, great-uncle of Eugene ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... smoothness, clearness, grammatical coherence, and intelligibility—than the autograph; and I can understand the preference of some students for the former, though I do not share it Michelangelo the younger added fluency and grace to his great-uncle's composition by the sacrifice of much that is most characteristic, and by the omission of much that is profound and ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella

... more water-belt there," said Lund, "than there was music in your great-uncle's jewsharp; but there's a spot off to the sou'-west that looks to me a ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... them among their kindred according to the following table of affinity: first, their father's brothers; secondly, the sons of their father's brothers; thirdly, of their father's sisters; fourthly, their great-uncles; fifthly, the sons of a great-uncle; sixthly, the sons of a great-aunt. The kindred in such cases shall always be reckoned in this way; the relationship shall proceed upwards through brothers and sisters and brothers' and sisters' children, ...
— Laws • Plato

... Holstein. The Buelow family is one very widely extended in north Germany, and many members have attained distinction in the civil and military service of Prussia, Denmark and Mecklenburg. Prince Buelow's great-uncle, Heinrich von Buelow, who was distinguished for his admiration of England and English institutions, was Prussian ambassador in England from 1827 to 1840, and married a daughter of Wilhelm von Humboldt (see the letters of Gabrielle von Buelow). His father, Bernhard ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... "That Goodge was my great-uncle," said the courteous Jonah, "and there was no one in Ullerton better acquainted with Rebecca Caulfield. I've heard my grandmother talk of her many a time. She used to send him poultry and garden-stuff from her house at Dewsdale, ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... rumblings which heralded the French Revolution ninety-two years later; and for three-quarters of a century to be known as the most accomplished and heartless roue in all France. Bearer of a great name, and inheritor of the splendours and riches of his great-uncle, the Cardinal, who was Louis XII.'s right-hand man, and, in his day, the most powerful subject in Europe, the Duc was born with the football of fortune at his feet; and probably no man who has ever lived so shamefully ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... persons must be mentioned as having exercised a lasting influence upon his early life. One of these was an old great-uncle, Justizrath Voethoery, brother of both his grandmothers, and a gentleman of Hungarian origin. This excellent man was retired from all business, with the exception that he continued to act as justiciary for the estates of certain well-tried friends. He used ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Kublai was the grandson of Chinghiz, and Nayan was the great-great-grandson of Chinghiz's brother Uchegin, called in the Chinese annals Pilgutai. [Belgutai was Chinghiz's step-brother. (Palladius.)—H. C.] On this brother, the great-uncle of Kublai, and the commander of the latter's forces against Arikbuga in the beginning of the reign, both Chinghiz and Kublai had bestowed large territories in Eastern Tartary towards the frontier of Corea, and north of Liaotong towards the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... Cantilupe, one of the greatest men who has ever held that office, a man whose life was in almost every way a remarkable contrast to that of his predecessor, Bishop Aquablanca. It is said that the Bishop of Worcester, his great-uncle, asked him as a child as to his choice of a profession, and that he answered he would like to be a soldier. "Then, sweetheart," his uncle is said to have exclaimed, "thou shalt be a soldier to serve the King of Kings, and fight under the banner of the glorious ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... contemptuously, by Mark Antony in his letters; to which he makes only this reply: "I am surprised that my former name should be made a subject of reproach." He afterwards assumed the name of Caius Caesar, and then of Augustus; the former in compliance with the will of his great-uncle, and the latter upon a motion of Munatius Plancus in the senate. For when some proposed to confer upon him the name of Romulus, as being, in a manner, a second founder of the city, it was resolved that he should rather be called Augustus, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... Selkirk. The maiden name of Home's mother was Macneil. He was adopted by an aunt, who, about 1842, carried the wondrous child to America. He had, since he was four years old, given examples of second sight; it was in the family. Home's mother, who died in 1850, was second-sighted, as were her great-uncle, an Urquhart, and her uncle, a Mackenzie. So far there was nothing unusual or alarming in Home's case, at least to any intelligent Highlander. Not till 1850, after his mother's death, did Home begin to hear 'loud blows on the head of my bed, as if struck by a hammer.' The Wesley ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... said shortly, after a pause, adopting the benevolent tone of an uncle or even a great-uncle, "you'll be getting married one of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... right. Lady Gertrude's father was a parvenu, of very mean extraction. Her great-uncle had made the family fortune, partly in trade, but mostly by petty peculations; and her father, who had attracted the Queen's eye when a young lawyer, had been rapidly promoted through the minor grades of nobility, until he had reached his present standing. Gertrude was not noble in respect ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... and must content myself with dying, of which I am equally susceptible with the best of you. My name is Mr. Romaine—Daniel Romaine—a solicitor of London city, at your service; and, what will perhaps interest you more, I am here at the request of your great-uncle, the Count." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... she became betrothed to Duke Crazioso di Pianno-Forti, of the famous family of Moderato e Diminuendo—indirectly descended from the Cardinal Appassionato Tutti. Tutti was the great-uncle of the infamous Con Spirito, well known to posterity as the lover of the lovely but passionate Violenza Allargando, destined to become the mother of Largo con Craviata, the fearless captain of Dolcissimo's light horse under General Lamento Agitato, whose grandmother, Sempre Calando, ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward

... name in common for all daughters, or all sons of one family of sisters. The daughters take the name from their maternal grandmother, the sons from their maternal great-uncle. ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker

... for corncake swept through that part of the state; and in our own little neighbourhood a searching canvass of the resources of the five log farm-houses followed. As a result of it, young Jonathan Edwards and my then equally youthful Great-uncle Nathaniel set off the next day to drive to Brunswick with a span of old white horses hitched in a farm wagon without springs, carrying four rather poor sheep, four bushels of barley, and fifteen pounds of wool, which they hoped to exchange ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... house.... At yours it would not be proper; you are too young. And I prefer going to the father-in-law's rather than to the son-inlaw's. The rascal has made a good bargain in buying what he has bought with his stolen millions. But the other.... And his great-great-uncle might have been Jules Second, Pie Fifth, Hildebrand; he would have sold all just the same!.... He can not deceive himself! He has heard the suit against that man spoken of! He knows whence come those millions! He has heard their family, their lives spoken of! And he has not been inspired with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... was the fourth Earl of Aberdeen, who had held office many times, and had been Prime Minister during the Crimean War. He must have been a very old man then, for he was born in 1784. I have no very distinct recollection of him. Oddly enough, Lord Aberdeen was both my great-uncle and my step-grandfather, for his first wife had been my grandfather's sister, and after her death, he married my grandfather's widow, his two wives thus being sisters-in-law. Judging by their portraits by Lawrence, which hung round our dining-room, my great-grandfather, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... to do anything, even indirectly, in favour of the Jacobite cause. His interest was plainly on the other side, and he saw it. But then the same weakness in his character carried him, as it would have done his great-uncle Gaston in the same case, to keep measures with the Chevalier. His double-trimming character prevailed on him to talk with the Duke of Ormond, but it carried him no farther. I question not but he did, on this occasion, ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke

... it came about that her maid was able to read a difficult script with ease, or was able to read at all; and this was the first question she had condescended to put to the girl. Editha replied that she had been taught as a child by a great-uncle, a learned man; that she had been made to read volumes in a great variety of scripts to him, until reading had come easy to her, both Saxon ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... Prussia. The real causes of this war were French jealousy of the growing power of Prussia, and the Emperor's anxiety to strengthen his government in the affections of the French people by reviving the military glory of the reign of his great-uncle. The pretext upon which the war was actually declared was that Prussia was scheming to augment her influence by allowing a Prussian prince (Leopold of Hohenzollern) to become a candidate for the vacant throne of ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... Sandy, and tell your great-uncle and aunt about the fine games you've been having with ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... wonderful thing!" said she, at last, slowly; and her breath came like a gasp with her words. "My great-uncle, Mr. Oldways." ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... the part of the country where your grandfather and your great-uncle Bidault belong, in the arrondissement of the deputy who wants ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac

... Germany. And the emperor of the Greeks goes off happily and in joyous mood. Cliges, brave and courteous, calls to mind his sire's command. If his uncle, the emperor, will give him his permission, he will go and ask him for leave to return to Britain and there converse with his great-uncle, the King; for he is desirous of seeing and knowing him. So he presents himself before the emperor, and requests that he consent to let him go to Britain to see his uncle and his friends. Gently he proffered his request. But his uncle refused, when he had listened ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... prosaic and stupid great-uncle, as a young husband, felt dreadfully scandalized when his Queen, Marie Antoinette, ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... been the road to wealth, and to choose that of fame. The rest of his history is well known to you; but conceive the irritation of my father, who despises commerce (though, by the way, the best part of his property was made in that honourable profession by my great-uncle), and has a particular antipathy to the Dutch; think with what ear he would be likely to receive proposals for his only child from Vanbeest Brown, educated for charity by the house of Vanbeest and Vanbruggen! O Matilda, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... the time he lounged and dreamed of things he would never do. Only one thing had any attraction for him: music. God knows why! There was not a single musician in his family, except a rather cracked great-uncle, one of those odd, provincial characters, whose often remarkable intelligence and gifts are spent, in their proud isolation, on whims, and cranks, and trivialities. This great-uncle had invented a new system of notation—(yet another!)—which ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... about the same time, King Sebastian of Portugal was killed—as was also the English adventurer Thomas Stukely who had been diverted from invading Ireland to take part in this affair—in an expedition against Morocco. Dying without issue, Sebastian was succeeded by his great-uncle Henry, a cardinal whose Orders precluded the possibility of his leaving an heir. Philip of Spain therefore was now, through his mother, claimant to the position of heir apparent. [Footnote Philip claimed as the son of Isabella, sister of Henry and of John ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... straightened himself on the boards where the men had laid him. "Sedgwick, too! Sedgwick and I striking at each other like two savages decked with beads and scalps! Fratricidal strife if ever there was fratricidal strife! All right, doctor. I had a great-uncle lost his arm at Yorktown. Can't remember him,—my father and mother loved to talk of him—old Uncle Edward. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... her, to have character; his wife SHOULD have it, and he wasn't afraid of her having much. He had had, in his earlier time, to deal with plenty of people who had had it; notably with the three four ecclesiastics, his great-uncle, the Cardinal, above all, who had taken a hand and played a part in his education: the effect of all of which had never been to upset him. He was thus fairly on the look-out for the characteristic in this most intimate, as she was to come, of ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... Grant's great-uncle—old Governor Shaw," she said, with a pleased smile; "and the next one to it is Margaret's great-grandmother This one—" and she turned partly in her chair and pointed to a face Oliver thought he had seen before, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... one or two of 'em. I've given 'em a good deal of valerian and assafoetida,—not quite so much since the new blood came in. There is n't the change in folks people think,—same thing over and over again. I've seen six fingers on a child that had a six-fingered great-uncle, and I've seen that child's grandchild born with six fingers. Does this girl like to have her own way pretty well, like the rest of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)



Words linked to "Great-uncle" :   uncle, granduncle



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