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:
So, historically, most of the people here, their grandfather or their great-grandfather crossed the border illegally, undocumented, and they ran away from the Border Patrol and had to figure out life on their own.
From Slate ● Sep. 28, 2026
SAVANNAH, Ga.—Bill Howard’s family has earned a living from the piney woods of southeast Georgia since 1898, when his great-grandfather and seven great-great uncles started cutting lumber with a portable sawmill.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Her great-grandfather, Ted Watkins, was a revered leader in Watts in the 1960s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 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
Nina's Russian grandfather on the Volga and Marinas Indian great-grandfather in Guyana were linked by sugar.
From "Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science" by Marc Aronson
And in that way, he’s a bit like his great-grandfathers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026
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
"You don't defeat the memory of people's grandfathers and great-grandfathers that easily," he said in an interview.
From Reuters ● Dec. 29, 2021
My family, including two great-grandfathers and a great-great-grandmother who was one hundred and nine years old, traveled from place to place in seven wagons pulled by fourteen horses.
From "Milkweed" by Jerry Spinelli
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
