Hot answers tagged kinship-terms
32
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 ...
32
X is "the only child" of his parents, and "an only child" along with Y and Z. Similarly, I am "the" elder child of my parents and "an" elder (and eldest) child along with bunches of other people.
One refers to the specific situation; the other refers to the classification.
Edited to add:
Consider the following examples:
"The":
Census interviewer: Do ...
24
That would be sister-in-law:
sister of one's spouse, the wife of one's brother, or sometimes the wife of one's spouse's brother.
Edit: as ShreevatsaR points out in the comments, if you're looking for a single word that means only "wife of one's brother" and nothing else, then you're out of luck.
15
For formal writing, betrothed would be my number one choice. But, as Lunatik already gave that answer, I'll provide some more: spouse-to-be (instead of the gender-specific wife-to-be and husband-to-be), future spouse, prospective spouse, intended (date and informal).
Of course, it's much easier to refer to use adjectives and refer to the couple as a whole, ...
14
She would feel a "sisterly love" — the love of a sister — for her brother. A mother feels "motherly love" for her children, etc.
The reason for possible confusion stems from the use of "brotherly love" to describe in a general way the love of human beings for each other, similar to the way "mankind" also includes women.
12
It's very easy to determine the relationship in English.
First, find your common ancestor. Siblings have the same father, cousins have the same grandfather, etc.
Same grandfather means First cousin.
Same great-grandfather means second cousin.
Same great-great-grandfather means third cousin.
If you are not in the same generation, pick the shortest one, ...
12
It seems you interpreted this passage incorrectly.
The elder twin is the one who was born first (earliest) chronologically.
The narrator is lamenting the fact that the wise younger twin, Arabella, was born second, as her twin sibling seems to be making a mess of the inheritance process.
11
It comes from Middle English modyr in lawe. As far as I understand it, the term was first used in the 14th or 15th century. The idea behind it is that your mother-in-law has the same rights and duties as your biological mother and is given these rights and duties by the legal pact of marriage.
11
People have used "sistern" for this. The first use I find in Google books is from 1739:
That there were 20 Bretheren and Siſtern on their Bead Roll,
I suspect this plural was invented to serve as a parallel to "brethren"; I did not find it in the dictionaries I checked, and it is a much rarer word than "brethren".
UPDATE: as Unreason points out, I ...
11
I've not seen the movie, but the word brother itself doesn't indicate whether the sibling is elder or younger. If the girl did immediately know the brother was older, she must have been able to infer it from context or have some a priori knowledge.
Usually when you need to specify the relative age of a sibling, you'll use something like:
my ...
11
It is "cousin once removed".
See the nifty chart on wikipedia.
To summarize, what you do is, you take whatever relation you are to the person in his direct ancestry of the same generation as you, and that's the "base" of the relationship; then, however many generations you had to move to get to 'your' generation, that's how far removed he is.
So, you ...
11
You have noticed a very peculiar aspect of English vocabulary. As rich as it is in comparison to many other languages, due to its almost creole history, it really is impoverished in comparison to other languages in kinship terms.
But 'why' is always a difficult question, especially when mixed with cultural questions. There are the difficulties with ...
11
Perhaps the closest is uniparous:
(of certain animals) producing a single offspring at each birth
(of a woman) having borne only one child
botany (of a cyme) giving rise to only one branch from each flowering stem
From Parity (biology) also primipara:
a woman who has borne but one child or who is parturient for the first time.
10
Your question is very unclear, but I suspect that you're wondering if English has a way to distinguish between any of these kinds of relationships:
male cousin vs. female cousin
cousin on your mother's side vs. cousin on your father's side
child of your father's sister vs. child of your father's brother
etc.
The answer is no. English uses the same word ...
10
Talking about the archaic use of bastard to mean “illegitimate child”, it is not specifically masculine. One can talk about a “bastard daugther” just as much as one can talk of a “bastard son” or “bastard child”, as Google ngram shows. Well, not as much, because lineage or legitimacy is not nearly as important for daughters as it is for sons, but still, such ...
10
The step- prefix is from (13th-century) Old English steop-, referring to bereavement: steopcild was not stepchild as we know it today, but rather orphan before we acquired that word from Latin via Old French. A step-parent used to be the adopter of an orphan.
In-law is from the same time period and refers to Canon Law, which established relationships (and ...
9
He is your brother-in-law.
There has already been a similar question posted here to which the answer was "sister-in-law", so I'll finish the list here:
Your spouse's brother or your sister's husband is your brother-in-law.
Your spouse's sister or your brother's wife is your sister-in-law.
Your spouse's father is your father-in-law.
Your spouse's mother ...
9
"Common-law [husband|wife|spouse]" implies a understanding that a state of marriage exists but that you have not bothered getting official sanction.
Unmarried people living together are sometimes said to be "cohabitating", which suggests "cohabitant", though I've only heard that phase used once and it admits a misunderstanding that it merely means sharing a ...
9
If you can't use her name (e.g. if you're introducing her), and need to specify exactly which daughter-in-law, I'd suggest "my younger son's wife".
Second daughter-in-law is ambiguous since you aren't clear on what is being counted. It's not clear which you mean: younger daughter-in-law, or wife of younger son, or wife of son who married second.
8
Aside from saying that you "share a birthday", I am not sure that such a term exists. If it does it isn't likely to be very well known. Restricting it to only match siblings is likely to make things less likely to match up perfectly.
Generally, special birthdays are given a modifier. Most of these are just off the cuff:
holiday birthday
shared birthday
...
8
Although at first glance "an only child" sounds ungrammatical, in fact "only child" is a noun in and of itself. From the Cambridge online dictionary:
only child, noun
(plural only children)
Definition: a child who has no sisters or brothers
As for using "the only child", I don't see why it would be considered incorrect. In a different context, ...
8
Both grand- and great- seem to be translating the French grand-, as in grand-oncle and so on. French uses grand- consistently for the upward direction, and petit- for the reverse, as in petit-fils (grandson). In Latin your great-uncle is patruus magnus if he is on your father's side, and avunculus magnus on your mother's side; magnus, like French grand, can ...
8
There's not really one that I'm aware of-- or one that at least, as you said, doesn't carry other strange connotations with it or isn't long/awkward/wordy.
Honestly, I would just recommend 'boyfriend' for everyday use. I know it sounds a little juvenile (I've been with my girlfriend for much less time than you and it already feels a little insufficient), ...
8
Your native speaker is right about sibling relationship.
If you want to talk about the relationship between brothers, there's fraternal.
Conversely, sororal is used for sisters.
8
Cousin is the standard term in American English for the descendants of your parent's sibling. The child of your parent's sibling is your first cousin. The grandchild of your parent's sibling is your first cousin once removed.
To indicate that the cousin is related through your mother, you can use the term maternal cousin.
While I have never heard the term ...
7
I extracted the following from the online Webster Dictionary. It's interesting to see how all these words were transformed from Latin/Greek/Old High German/Middle English to the current English words.
Note: I know that this does not exactly answer your question, since you actually want to know if the words derived from words with other meanings. But I ...
7
As others have said, "mother" is a word that we can trace back to Proto Indo-European.
However, the occurrence of similar words all over the world is not reliable evidence of genetic connection between languages, since there is such a strong alternative hypothesis (a baby's first sounds, and sucking sounds).
I'm not saying all languages are not related, ...
7
In English the words "aunt" and "uncle" are used to refer to:
Your parents' siblings
Their spouses
Close friends of your parents
Additionally, "niece" and "nephew" are used to refer to:
Your siblings' children
Your spouse's sibling's children
Then there are the other related terms, like "brother-in-law" and "sister-in-law":
Your wife's siblings
...
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