grandam

American  

[gran-duhm, -dam] / ˈgræn dəm, -dæm /

Also grandame

noun

1. a grandmother.

2. an old woman.

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grandam British  

/ ˈɡrændeɪm, -dəm, ˈɡrændəm, -dæm /

noun

1. an archaic word for grandmother

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Etymology

Origin of grandam

1175–1225; Middle English gra ( u ) ndame < Old French grant dame. See grand, dame

Example Sentences

To many of her contemporaries Eleanor was a byword for wantonness, in Shakespeare four centuries later a "canker'd grandam"; by the time of Victoria, Charles Dickens thought it sufficient to call Eleanor "a bad woman."

From Time Magazine Archive

By the Games of 2022, it may be grandam Kissling who is declaring that, say, rhythmic snow dancing does not deserve to be elevated alongside her time-honored pursuit.

From Time Magazine Archive

I lived in the sunlight—before the crowds, the nervous crowds of Italy—singing, shouting, leaping, triumphing; and I forgot my mother alone in the old chamber above the Tiber—quite alone, for my grandam was dead.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. by Various

Afar off, in the forest, There lived her grandam old; And she was poor and needy, And often sick and cold.

From Red Riding Hood by Very, Lydia L.

And she would press him to have some claret wine; but he said no: perchance he guessed that good grandam had but small store of that.

From Judith Shakespeare Her love affairs and other adventures by Black, William