A word to distinguish between father's and mother's sister

Question

Is there a word in English that distinguishes between the mother’s brother and the father’s brother, or the mother's sister and the father's sister? The words ‘uncle’ and 'aunt' don't seem to do the job.

"Uncle" and "aunt" are all we have now. The maternal and paternal ones are called the same. The distinctions observed in Old English have not been kept. But you can call them "paternal uncle", "paternal aunt", "maternal uncle", and "maternal aunt". — Conrado, Dec 07 '20 at 03:01

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 07 '20 at 01:43

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Maybe “paternal aunt” = "عمة" and “maternal aunt” = "خالة" would work. I’ve never heard of a one-word equivalent of them in English.

answered Dec 07 '20 at 01:43

Reema

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English doesn't distinguish them. Swedish and Norwegian do, though; morbror means "mother's brother" and farbror means '"father's brother". Similar words exist for aunts. – John Lawler Dec 07 '20 at 02:07
@JohnLawler Are they the only words for 'uncle' or is there a generic word for 'uncle' which covers both 'farbror' and 'morbror'? I also wonder how they deal with your mother's brother-in-law (the man married to your mother's sister) who is either your uncle or your 'uncle by marriage'. – BoldBen Dec 07 '20 at 07:37

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 07 '20 at 02:43

From Wikipedia (entry for "distaff"):

The term distaff is used to describe the female side of a family. The corresponding term for the male side of a family is the "spear" side.

So "distaff aunt/uncle"; or "spear aunt/uncle". (I've heard of distaff used in this sense...spear, not so much.)

A word to distinguish between father's and mother's sister

2 Answers2