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noun, feminine

tante

/tɑ̃t/

noun, feminine/tɑ̃t/plural: tantes

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

Ma mère et ma tante sont jumelles.My mother and my aunt are twins.

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 th