Eldmother

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One's grandmother or other female ancestor, or one's mother-in-law. archaic, dialectal

    "Item I gyve vnto my eldmother his wyffe my wyffes froke and a read petticote and a smoke."

Example

More examples

"Item I gyve vnto my eldmother his wyffe my wyffes froke and a read petticote and a smoke."

Etymology

From Middle English eldmoder, from Old English eald mōdor (“grandmother”), equivalent to eld (“old”) + mother. Cognate with Scots eldmoder, eldmother (“mother-in-law”), Old Frisian aldemōder.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.