Feminine

tante

Meaning

  1. aunt
  2. homosexual (man); faggot, fag (US); poof (UK)

Frequency

B1
Pronounced as (IPA)
/tɑ̃t/
Etymology

In summary

Inherited from Middle French tante, alteration of ante, from Old French ante, from Latin amita ("father's sister"). The initial t- is probably due to childish reduplication. A derivation from t’ante, that is ta ante (“your aunt”), is grammatically possible because the use of ton with vowel-initial feminines is secondary and was only optional in Middle French. However, if a rebracketing of this sort had occurred, one would not expect it to happen with the second-person pronoun, but much rather the first person (thus *mante).

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