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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.

The first records of the word great-grandmother come from the 1500s. The prefix grand- is used in family terms to indicate a person who is one generation removed, as in grandparent and grandchild. The prefix great- indicates yet another generation.

Another great- can be added for each generation. For example, your great-great-grandmother is the mother of your great-grandmother. Most people refer to their great-grandmothers with titles like great-grandma and great-grandmom, sometimes in combination with a name, as in Great-Grandma Marie.

What are some synonyms for great-grandmother?

• great-grandma

What are some words that share a root or word element with great-grandmother?��

• great-grandfather
• great-grandparent
• grandmother
• mother

What are some words that often get used in discussing great-grandmother?

• great-grandchildren
• love
• kindness
• spoil
• special
• care
• family
• matriarch
• ancestor

Great-grandmother can be used as a title, but many families use their own unique names. Still, the title that grandchildren use for their grandmother often stays the same even after she becomes a great-grandmother.

Our great grandmothers couldn't vote; grandmothers fought to vote; mothers influence the vote…
We ARE the vote.

— J.M.B. (@ModelCitizen44)

"We shouldn't be fighting the same war that our grandmothers had to fight – that our great grandmothers had to fight."

Please tune in to our conversation about race and family with – Growing Up Black

Watch NOW: (and replay at 11pmET)

— NBC News NOW (@NBCNewsNow)

Alice Walker says in her title essay for “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens” that quilting or arranging flowers or making a garden were ways our great grandmothers/ancestors created beauty or made art or told stories when literacy was forbidden or inaccessible.

— Joshunda Sanders (@JoshundaSanders)

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Is great-grandmother used correctly in the following sentence?

I’m a great-grandmother of 18, a grandmother of 12, and a mother of four, so I know a thing or two about temper tantrums.