great-grandmother
Americannoun
Usage
What does great-grandmother mean? A great-grandmother is the mother of a person’s grandparent (the grandmother of a person’s parent). When a mother’s child has their own children, that mother becomes a grandmother. When those children have their own children, she becomes a great-grandmother. Should great-grandmother be capitalized?Great-grandmother should be capitalized when it’s used as a proper name, as in Please tell Great-grandmother that I miss her. But great-grandmother does not need to be capitalized when it’s simply used as a way to refer to her, as in Please tell my great-grandmother that I miss her. Example: My kids were lucky enough to get to know three of their great-grandmothers.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of great-grandmother
First recorded in 1520–30
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:
Dyer's great-grandmother said her grandson had been the family's "final beacon of hope" after a "relentless sequence of tragedies".
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
She then explored eligibility through her great-grandmother, only to find that the rule changes bar that.
From Barron's ● Jun. 7, 2026
My Italian great-grandmother moved into the English Tudor in the 1940s on a street lined by deodars and palm trees.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 7, 2026
For years, Barbara Schmidt’s family feared an illness was behind a pattern of terrifying falls that repeatedly landed the 83-year-old great-grandmother in surgery with broken bones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 22, 2025
“Mima, my beautiful mother, your great-grandmother, used to say we came from Toledo. Her last name was Toledano, after all.”
From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar
For these survivors—the grandmothers and great-grandmothers who populate many romantic fantasies—“Italy” seldom meant idyllic country vistas and cardiologists’ dream culinary joys.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
McDonald’s performance opens a window onto the grandmothers and great-grandmothers whose lives were even more tragically curtailed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2025
“Tribute is paid to all grandmothers, great-grandmothers, mothers and traditional healers who in times past could cure everything from a broken heart to clinical illnesses with the help of herbs, flowers, bark, etc.”
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2024
And in 1917, her heavily pregnant great-grandmothers “swelled with orange heat, like the fruiting of giant persimmons.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 27, 2023
The heavy work has all been done by countless great-grandmothers and their mates.
From "Watership Down: A Novel" by Richard Adams
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.
