grandparent
Americannoun
noun
Usage
What does grandparent mean? A grandparent is the parent of a person’s parent. When a parent’s child has children, that parent becomes a grandparent. Grandmothers and grandfathers are grandparents. A parent of a grandparent is called a great-grandparent. In your family tree, you have four grandparents and eight great-grandparents. Most people refer to their grandparents with titles like grandma and grandpa. Example: It doesn’t matter what you call your grandparents, as long as you call them.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of grandparent
Explanation
A grandparent is your parent's parent. Your dad's mother is your grandparent, and so is your mom's father. If you're lucky enough to have living grandparents, then that's pretty grand. Most people have a special name for each of their grandparents, whether it's "Grandma," "Grandpa Bob," or "Nana." Others never have the chance to meet their grandparents, but everyone has them. The word grandparent, first used at the start of the nineteenth century, uses grand in its sense of "a generation older than." Your grandparents are a generation older than your parents.
Vocabulary lists containing grandparent
It's All in the Family
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September Words
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Unit 10
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One younger person asked for help handling the finances of his grandparent, which fell to him because the generation above him doesn’t get along and couldn’t come to a consensus on any financial matters.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 17, 2026
Nana, my only living grandparent, is an immigrant from Mexico.
From Salon ● Jun. 3, 2026
Elderly people are particularly vulnerable, with experts warning of rising cases of "grandparent scams."
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
“As a grandparent, you know you can love them and spoil them and then give them back.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026
Granddad was the last grandparent to die, and the only one I have any memories of.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
“I’m not sure what they would have thought as far as having gay descendants,” Dorothy said of her distant grandparents.
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
He said that the franchise's longevity was due to "all the people like you and your parents and your grandparents, because of their intelligence and their sensitivity and their vision" in supporting Gene Roddenberry's concept.
From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026
He still bought a portable air conditioning unit in spring as a precaution, and is concerned about his grandparents and his father living further south in Hertfordshire.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Living with older adults also helped him fill an absence in his life created by the loss of his grandparents when he was about 6 years old, he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 24, 2026
He was going to have two parents who cared and grandparents who doted on him and spend summers in a house on the shore.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
