great-grandfather
Americannoun
-
great-grandfathers
plural
Usage
What does great-grandfather mean? A great-grandfather is the father of a person’s grandparent (the grandfather of a person’s parent). When a father’s child has their own children, that father becomes a grandfather. When those children have their own children, he becomes a great-grandfather. Should great-grandfather be capitalized?Great-grandfather should be capitalized when it’s used as a proper name, as in Please tell Great-grandfather that I miss him. But great-grandfather does not need to be capitalized when it’s simply used as a way to refer to him, as in Please tell my great-grandfather that I miss him. Example: My kids were lucky enough to get to know three of their great-grandfathers.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of great-grandfather
First recorded in 1505–15
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:
Simmons, a self-confessed family history buff, said his great-grandfather studied in London between 1839 to 1844.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
In 1998, scientific analysis of a DNA sample from Dorothy’s maternal uncle confirmed that her third great-grandfather, Eston, was Jefferson’s youngest child by Hemings.
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
Like her great-grandfather Shrewlock Holmes, Minerva has something of a cerebral streak.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
He looked closely - it was of the little boy's great-grandfather, Stephen Andrew, who had pulled Gareth to safety on that fateful day.
From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026
So I asked my father, your great-grandfather, whom I considered the best, most kindhearted man I knew, to write a letter to me.
From "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer
Mwaba comes from a family of miners - his great-grandfathers and one grandfather worked down the mines and his father above the ground.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2025
We search for clues and craft paragraphs that give a hint to how soldiers and sailors — who could have shared a beer with our fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers — lived their short lives.
From Seattle Times ● May 28, 2023
"People have to know what our great-grandfathers, our grandfathers and grandmothers went through... as many are beginning to forget what May 9 is and what it stands for."
From Reuters ● May 7, 2023
Through messaging, they had uncovered that their great-grandfathers were from neighboring small towns in Bessarabia, now Moldova.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2021
A gift for a great-grandfather from North Dakota, maybe for all great-grandfathers.
From "Crash" by Jerry Spinelli
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.
