granddaddy
English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]granddaddy (plural granddaddies)
- (informal) A grandfather.
- (informal) Something that is the greatest or most significant of its kind.
- 1957 December, All Hands, numbers 480-491, page 24:
- The nature of this gas enables it to absorb the majority of the sun's ultraviolet rays, thus saving the human race from the granddaddy of all sunburns.
- 2007, W. Randall Jones, Julie M. Fenster, The Greatest Stock Picks of All Time, Crown Business, →ISBN, page 245:
- In the far corner, representing the twentieth century, is the granddaddy of all common stocks, AT&T. Here is a company that earned its place in the pantheon of great stocks simply by increasing its dividend for an absurdly long period of time.
- 2010, Sean Michael Flynn, Land of the Radioactive Midnight Sun: A Cheechako's First Year in Alaska, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 129:
- The region, with its twenty-two hours of summer daylight, is now known for its giant vegetables that include six-foot-wide cauliflower, eighteen-pound carrots, fifty-pound celery, and the granddaddy of all giant vegetables, the Alaskan cabbage ...
- 2012, Earl Fee, The Wonder of It All, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 173:
- A hundred years from now or two-hundred years from now they will speak of this tsunami of all tsunami's— the granddaddy of all tsunami's.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:grand-daddy.
Synonyms
[edit]- (grandfather): gramps, pops
- (most significant thing): mother (as mother of all), father, grandfather, grandmammy
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]References
[edit]- 2013, Christine Ammer, The Dictionary of Clichés: A Word Lover's Guide to 4,000 Overused Phrases and Almost-Pleasing Platitudes, Skyhorse, →ISBN:
- This colloquialism dates from about 1900 and is never applied to a person. For example, “That was the granddaddy of all hurricanes, according to the weather forecaster.” The Persian Gulf War of 1991 gave rise to a similar locution, the mother of all ...