cousin n.

early 13c., "a collateral blood relative more remote than a brother or sister" (mid-12c. as a surname), from Old French cosin "nephew; kinsman; cousin" (12c., Modern French cousin), from Latin consobrinus "cousin," originally "mother's sister's son," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see com-) + sobrinus (earlier *sosrinos) "cousin on mother's side," from soror (genitive sororis) "sister" (see sister).

Specific modern usage, "the son or daughter of an uncle or aunt," is attested by c. 1300, but throughout Middle English the word also was used of grandchildren, godchildren, etc. Extended sense of "closely related thing" is from late 14c.

Italian cugino, Danish kusine, Polish kuzyn also are from French. German vetter is from Old High German fetiro "uncle," perhaps on the notion of "child of uncle." Words for cousin tend to drift to "nephew" on the notion of "father's nephew."

Many IE languages (including Irish, Sanskrit, Slavic, and some of the Germanic tongues) have or had separate words for some or all of the eight possible "cousin" relationships, such as Latin, which along with consobrinus had consobrina "mother's sister's daughter," patruelis "father's brother's son," atruelis "mother's brother's son," amitinus "father's sister's son," etc. Old English distinguished fæderan sunu "father's brother's son," modrigan sunu "mother's sister's son," etc.

Used familiarly as a term of address since early 15c., especially in Cornwall. Phrase kissing cousin is a Southern U.S. expression, 1940s, apparently denoting "those close enough to be kissed in salutation;" Kentish cousin (1796) is an old British term for "distant relative." For cousin german "first cousin" (early 14c.) see german (adj.).

词汇	cousin
词源	cousin n. early 13c., "a collateral blood relative more remote than a brother or sister" (mid-12c. as a surname), from Old French cosin "nephew; kinsman; cousin" (12c., Modern French cousin), from Latin consobrinus "cousin," originally "mother's sister's son," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see com-) + sobrinus (earlier sosrinos) "cousin on mother's side," from soror (genitive sororis) "sister" (see sister). Specific modern usage, "the son or daughter of an uncle or aunt," is attested by c. 1300, but throughout Middle English the word also was used of grandchildren, godchildren, etc. Extended sense of "closely related thing" is from late 14c. Italian cugino, Danish kusine, Polish kuzyn also are from French. German vetter is from Old High German fetiro "uncle," perhaps on the notion of "child of uncle." Words for cousin tend to drift to "nephew" on the notion of "father's nephew." Many IE languages (including Irish, Sanskrit, Slavic, and some of the Germanic tongues) have or had separate words for some or all of the eight possible "cousin" relationships, such as Latin, which along with consobrinus had consobrina "mother's sister's daughter," patruelis "father's brother's son," atruelis "mother's brother's son," amitinus "father's sister's son," etc. Old English distinguished fæderan sunu "father's brother's son," modrigan sunu "mother's sister's son," etc. Used familiarly as a term of address since early 15c., especially in Cornwall. Phrase kissing cousin* is a Southern U.S. expression, 1940s, apparently denoting "those close enough to be kissed in salutation;" Kentish cousin (1796) is an old British term for "distant relative." For cousin german "first cousin" (early 14c.) see german (adj.). Entries linking to cousin com- word-forming element usually meaning "with, together," from Latin com, archaic form of classical Latin cum "together, together with, in combination," from PIE kom- "beside, near, by, with" (compare Old English ge-, German ge-). The prefix in Latin sometimes was used as an intensive. Before vowels and aspirates, it is reduced to co-; before -g-, it is assimilated to cog- or con-; before -l-, assimilated to col-; before -r-, assimilated to cor-; before -c-, -d-, -j-, -n-, -q-, -s-, -t-, and -v-, it is assimilated to con-, which was so frequent that it often was used as the normal form. sister n. mid-13c., suster, "female sibling, a female person in her relation to other children of the same parents," from Old English sweostor, swuster, Northumbrian soester "sister," or a Scandinavian cognate (Old Norse systir, Swedish syster, Danish søster), in any case from Proto-Germanic swestr- (source also of Old Saxon swestar, Old Frisian swester, Middle Dutch suster, Dutch zuster, Old High German swester, German Schwester, Gothic swistar). These are from PIE swesor, one of the most persistent and unchanging root words, recognizable in almost every modern Indo-European language (Sanskrit svasar-, Avestan shanhar-, Latin soror, Old Church Slavonic, Russian sestra, Lithuanian sesuo, Old Irish siur, Welsh chwaer). Greek eor "daughter, cousin" is the surviving relic of the root in that language, perhaps from a dialectal vocative form; it was replaced as "sister" byadelphē (for which see Adelphi).French soeur "a sister" (11c., instead of sereur) is directly from Latin soror, a rare case of a borrowing from the nominative case. The forms in -u- persisted through Middle English; for the vowel evolution, see bury. It was used of nuns in Old English, of the Fates from c. 1300, the Muses from late 14c., and of the Pleiades from early 15c. From late 14c. as "fellow woman," without regard to relationship, "fellow creature, woman sharing the human condition," also "woman engaged in the same activity as another." The meaning "female fellow-Christian, woman of one's own faith" is from mid-15c. In modern use, of a woman in general from 1906; especially in U.S. of "a Black woman" from 1926; and in the sense of "fellow feminist" from 1912. Sister act "variety act by two or more sisters" is from vaudeville (1908). com-sister (n.)german (adj.)coz (n.)cuzkissing (adj.) updated on February 19, 2020
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cousin n.

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