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Brothers and sisters are siblings. Husbands and wives are spouses. Mothers and fathers are parents. Sons and daughters are children. Grandparents, grandchildren ... but what about uncles and aunts, or nieces and nephews?

In writing this, I scanned the "Similar Questions" sidebar and found that half of my question is already answered; there is no real term for nieces and nephews. Bummer. But I'm still wondering about aunts and uncles: does anyone know about that?

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  • This question is not focused and should be edited for focus or closed.
    – John
    Commented Dec 22, 2020 at 12:27
  • pibling is a gender neutral term for aunt or uncle. nibbling is a gender neutral term for nephew or niece.
    – Mazzaroth
    Commented Mar 3, 2021 at 2:13

6 Answers 6

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The answer to the similar question you mention actually has your answer. No, there is no gender-neutral word for your parents' siblings.

From the answer:

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 a word for it":
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    Just as a side note, with respect to aunts and uncles, we have an adjective for the male (avuncular), but none for the female - although materteral and tantesque have been suggested by some.
    – The Raven
    Commented Jun 22, 2011 at 15:36
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    @TheRaven I believe the word "avuncular" actually has its origins in a specific custom of a man helping raise his eldest sister's children, being even more involved with them than with his own. The logic of this was that before DNA testing, a man could never be sure that "his" children were really his blood relatives, but he could be sure that his sister's children were.
    – Nicole
    Commented Jul 29, 2015 at 13:06
  • @Nicole The origin is indeed the Latin avunculus - a maternal uncle, however the word is quite recent in English (first recorded in OED in 1831) and was never used in such a restricted manner.
    – Greybeard
    Commented Dec 22, 2020 at 15:52
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My solutions would be "parents' siblings", and "siblings' children". They don't make single words, but do make concise terms.

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The Non-binary Wiki suggests ommer as a gender neutral for aunt/uncle:

ommer ... Non-standard genderqueer term for "aunt/uncle"

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    This therm is widely used in the context of blockchain technology: "An ommer is a block whose parent is equal to the current block’s parent’s parent." medium.com/@preethikasireddy/…
    – e18r
    Commented May 21, 2018 at 19:30
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I propose pibling, by analogy to nibling.

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  • I'm confused: the same article that suggests nibling proposes pibling. In fact, it proposes pibling first, and then extends it further to nibling. Do you mean to say that "nibling" is actually a word you use and other people understand it? If so, where do you live?
    – Marthaª
    Commented Apr 25, 2012 at 18:16
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    I live in the New York City area. People at my office use "nibling" informally. From urbandictionary.com, I take it that others understand it, too.
    – Keith
    Commented Apr 25, 2012 at 19:25
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    This is an answer, not a comment, but it needs a lot more information to be a good one (some citations and an explanation of nibling, for instance).
    – Kit Z. Fox ♦
    Commented May 19, 2013 at 16:33
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    I've heard "nibling" in the wild too and use it. See also OED discussion: blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2018/01/22/…
    – Ellen Spertus
    Commented Oct 14, 2018 at 18:35
  • Yeah, one of my friends uses nibling in everyday life.
    – piersb
    Commented Apr 3, 2020 at 14:48
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genderqueer titles list

I hadn't heard of any listed for aunt/uncle, but I did know the term 'nibling' for niece/nephew.

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    Because your link might go dead, please include a synopsis of the pertinent bits (which all seem somewhat more fabulated to me than they do fabulous) in your own answer. Furthermore, other answers already provide nibling, so without further expansion, you answer provides nothing new.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jan 9, 2014 at 13:20
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Well, the compound-word "extended-family" can work.

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    Or relatives. But these are too vague.
    – Daniel
    Commented Jun 25, 2011 at 16:51

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