mother's brothern.

1870 L. H. Morgan Syst. Consanguinity 12 My father's brothers and my mother's brothers, in English, are generalized into one class, and the term uncle is employed... The relationships to Ego of the two classes of persons are equal in their degree of nearness, but not of the same kind; wherefore, the Roman method is preferable, which employed patruus to express the former, and avunculus to indicate the latter.

1870 L. H. Morgan Syst. Consanguinity 13 In Seneca-Iroquois, for example, my father's brother is my father... My mother's brother, on the contrary, is my uncle.

1934 R. H. Lowie Introd. Cultural Anthropol. xiii. 251 A preponderant position of the mother's brother may occur even without matrilocal residence and is termed ‘avunculate’.

1951 R. Firth Elements Social Organization ii. 48 Reference has been made..to the importance of the mother's brother relationship in Oceanic communities.

1972 J. S. La Fontaine Interpr. Ritual 166 While all non-agnatic kin ceremonially recognize a girl's maturity, the primary ritual figure, to the exclusion of her father or senior agnates, is her mother's brother.

1991 Eng. Today Apr. 29/2 In a number of speech-communities your father's brothers are your fathers too... Your mother's brother is your ‘female father’.