Having the characteristics, warmth, kindness, or manner typical of a grandmother; caring and protective in a gentle way.
From grandmother plus -ly, a suffix creating adjectives. This word has been in English since at least the 1600s, establishing the stereotype of grandmothers as warm and nurturing figures.
The adjective grandmotherly is almost always positive in English, while 'old-fashioned' can be negative—this shows how we've built a loving image of grandmothers into the actual language itself!
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