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Definition
like an uncle in kindness or indulgence- He cultivates an avuncular image, but is ruthless as a shark.
- Arthur Burns was an avuncular, pipe-smoking scholar.Alan Greenspan -- The Age of Turbulence
- Ezra delivered his speech in his slow, avuncular manner.Pat Conroy -- The Water is Wide
- But the officer's contempt is not, as in 'other armies, avuncular theatricality.Kurt Vonnegut -- Slaughterhouse-Five
- Avuncular's got my timepiece.James Joyce -- Ulysses
- Simpson flashed his patient, avuncular smile.J.D. Robb -- Naked in Death
- GUIL: Not exactly fraternal PLAYER: Not exactly avuncular, as time goes on.Tom Stoppard -- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
- I wash, he dries, and he asks me benign, avuncular, maddening questions, such as how do I like Grade Nine.Margaret Atwood -- Cat's Eye
- The secret police have several functions, my dear, he began in an avuncular tone.Milan Kundera -- The Unbearable Lightness of Being
- This last one usually accompanies a picture of Uncle Enzo with his arm around some teenager's shoulders, giving him a stern avuncular talking-to.Neal Stephenson -- Snow Crash
- 'Keep still, idiot,' Yossarian advised Clevinger avuncularly.Joseph Heller -- Catch-22
- There was a brief, embarrassed silence before Frode finally turned to Salander and tried to repair the damage by assuming a friendly, avuncular tone.Stieg Larsson -- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- He looked up at her in surprise and then assumed an avuncular tone: "Well, young lady, do your parents know that you're thinking of moving away from home?"Stieg Larsson -- The Girl Who Played with Fire
- Pete Zamperini was handsome, popular, impeccably groomed, polite to elders and avuncular to juniors, silky smooth with girls, and blessed with such sound judgment that even when he was a child, his parents consulted him on difficult decisions.Laura Hillenbrand -- Unbroken
- Every morning before dawn our Base Camp sirdar-an avuncular, highly respected, forty Prayer flags are printed with holy Buddhist invocations-most commonly om manipadm hum-which are dispatched to God with each flap of the pennant. often prayer flags bear the red creatures in the Sherpa image of a winged horse in addition to written prayers; horses are sac cosmology and are believed to carry the prayers heavenward with special speed.Jon Krakauer -- Into Thin Air
- They alone were deaf to that persistent voice, now grumbling, now patronizing, now domineering, now grieved, now shocked, now angry, now avuncular, that voice which cannot let women alone, but must be at them, like some too-conscientious governess, adjuring them, like Sir Egerton Brydges, to be refined; dragging even into the criticism of poetry criticism of sex; [*1] admonishing them, if they would be good and win, as I suppose, some shiny prize, to keep within certain limits which...Virginia Woolf -- A Room of One's Own
- "Well, that's ridiculous," he said, flashing an avuncular grin that I suspected was generated by whatever diplomacy software he was running.Ernest Cline -- Ready Player One
- Uncle Enzo is standing there, not exactly smiling, an avuncular glint in his eye for sure, not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would, and it says The Mafia you've got a friend in The Family! paid for by the Our Thing Foundation The bifiboard serves as the Deliverator's polestar.Neal Stephenson -- Snow Crash