Nuncle

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Uncle. archaic, dialectal

    "Fool: Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman?"

  2. 2
    Aunt or uncle; sibling of a parent (regardless of gender).
Verb
  1. 1
    To cheat, deceive. England, regional

Synonyms

All synonyms
auntbelirtblood brotherbrethrenbrotherbub

Example

More examples

"Fool: Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman?"

Etymology

From rebracketing of phrases an uncle, mine uncle, thine uncle, etc. Compare neam and naunt. For the verb, OED suggests an evolution in sense "to claim to be one's uncle" > "to cheat". It compares this derivation with cozen, which it derives from cousin. For the technical anthropological sense, compare nibling.

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