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Your parent has a sibling who is married. Is there a specific term for the sibling's spouse's parents? Or are they still your grandparents?

user335277
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3 Answers3

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As far as I'm aware, there's no specific term in English for that relationship.

They are certainly not grandparents, that term applies only to the parents of your parents.

Chris H
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    I never knew any of the people who stood in that relation to me, but if I had done so, as a child I would probably have called them Auntie and Uncle too. – Kate Bunting Feb 07 '19 at 10:11
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No, there is no specific term.

We have in English grandparents (grandmother and grandfather), parents (mother and father), siblings (brother and sister), children (son and daughter), grandchildren (grandson and granddaughter), Aunts, uncles and cousins.

We can add multiple "great"s to grandparents or grandchildren to add extra generations, and add "first, second, third" to cousins for further generations before a common ancestor, and "once, twice, three times" removed for cousins who are not in the same generation as us.

We can also add "-in-law" for relationships by marriage, but this is restricted to very few situations. Your sibling's spouse or the sibling of your spouse is a brother/sister-in-law. Your spouses parents are father/mother-in-law and you're their son/daughter-in-law. No other uses for -in-law are in common usage.

Oh, and there are various alternative names for grandparents and parents, such as Nanny or Pops.

Other than that, there are no other kinship terms available.

In your situation, in order to use as few words as possible, if the Uncle is the blood relation (i.e. my parent's brother) I'd say "my Aunt's parents", or if the Aunt is the blood relation I'd say "my Uncle's parents". Even if people didn't know whether it was your Aunt or Uncle that was a blood relation, it'd be fairly obvious that you wouldn't refer to your own grandparents as "my Aunt's parents".

AndyT
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I think you could possibly call them "Great aunt" and "Great uncle".

The dictionary has this as

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/great-aunt

an aunt of one's father or mother; sister of one's grandfather or grandmother

Let's revisit the scenario: "Your parent has a sibling who is married. Is there a specific term for the sibling's spouse's parents?"

So, my mother (Alice) has a brother (Bob), who is married to Carol. We're talking about Carol's parents, Debbie and Edward. So, the question is: does Alice call Debbie (Carol's mother) "Aunt Debbie"? I think you'd have to say "She might".

That is to say, some extended families are closer than others. In some families, some people might refer to their sister-in-law's parents as aunt and uncle, even though they're not auntie and uncle by the strict definition (one's parents' siblings).

If this is the case, then if Alice calls Debbie "Aunt Debbie", then Alice's children could call her "Great aunt Debbie", even though she's not a by-the-book great aunt.

Max Williams
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    "Great aunt" and "great uncle" are customarily restricted to "sibling of one's grandfather or grandmother." In this case, the parents of someone married to one's child are not siblings to that parent. The grandparents are not siblings to their own kid's parents-in-law. So your reasoning might justify calling an aunt-by-marriage's parents "aunt" and "uncle" as well, which sometimes refer to family friends or adults who don't have a better explanation, but "great aunt" and "great uncle" would mislead anyone outside of the family. – TaliesinMerlin Feb 07 '19 at 14:34