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I find it handy when talking about my sons and daughters I can just say my children. It's nice to say nieces instead of sibling's daughters. I wonder if there is a similar term for nieces and nephews together? I imagine I could say sibling's kids but I was hoping for a single word.

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+1 I have no idea of a word's existence, but would love there to be one, so this is an interesting question. – Orbling Dec 8 '10 at 2:32
@Orbling Hear hear! – WAF Dec 8 '10 at 3:25
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In italian, you have one word (nipote) for both, unfortunately the ambiguity doesn't stop there! – Benjol Dec 8 '10 at 5:42
what a good question ! – JoseK Dec 8 '10 at 11:05
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In some Norwegian dialects you could use "tantebarn" (lit. aunt-children) if you're female. Logically the male equivalent should be "onkelbarn" (uncle-children) but I've never heard it. (Maybe men don't speak that much about children? I've never had the need for a short word for it anyway) – Stein G. Strindhaug Mar 22 '11 at 9:52
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2 Answers

up vote 32 down vote accepted

There seems to be no "official" word.

You will find " nibling ", by analogy with sibling.
(But it is mentioned only in the "New Words & Slang" section of Merriam-Webster, or in site like urbandictionary.com)

This thread also mentions:

  • that there is no encompassing word for aunt/uncle either
  • that there is no male/female form of cousin.
  • the article "There isn't word for it":

(humor)

The word sibling comes from Old English, and just means related by blood.
I suggest taking the parental ‘p’ to replace the ‘s’, so aunts and uncles are ‘piblings’.
Following the pattern, nephews and nieces become ‘niblings’, a nice word that describes what they do to their piblings' bank balances at Christmas and birthdays.

You can find the term used recently in this blog post "The Christmas Gift that Keeps On Giving", but you can also find it in one of the episodes of an old 1980 adventure series "The Moomins"

alt text

(from "Moomin Winter in Moomin Book 5")

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+1 purely for the moomins. Can I nominate 'ancles' for aunts and uncles? – CJM Dec 8 '10 at 11:29
@CJM: you could, except it might be tricky to pronounce it right ('ancles') and still being able to differentiate it from 'uncles'. If the context is not accurate enough, one could believe your are talking about 'uncles' with a funny accent. – VonC Dec 8 '10 at 11:33
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@VonC, @CJM, and ankles :) – Benjol Dec 8 '10 at 12:29
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@CJM: How about "auncles" instead? – Jon Purdy Dec 8 '10 at 17:44
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+1 Generally probably the only road forward and there are Moomins, anything with Moomins gets voted up out of principle. – Orbling Dec 8 '10 at 20:51
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up vote -2 down vote

The questioner did not ask for a single word, but a term. I'd suggest "siblings' children"

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Uh, I'm not sure where you got that. The OP explicitly states I imagine I could say sibling's kids but I was hoping for a single word. – Dusty May 10 '11 at 18:45

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