Cousinship

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The kinship bond that exists between cousins who share a grandparent ; a collective of relatives who trace their descent from a common ancestor
2. The familial connection linking cousins to one another ; a body of distant relatives considered together as a related group
3. The state of being cousins, a blood tie between people sharing grandparents ; the wider community of kinfolk descended from a shared forebear

Etymology: "Cousinship" is a plain compound: the noun "cousin" with the suffix "-ship", which attaches to nouns to name a state, condition or collective relationship (as in "friendship" or "kinship"). Put together, it denotes the relationship of being cousins, or the group of one's cousins taken collectively. The "cousin" half has its own tangled past. It came into English from Old French "cosin", which descends from Latin "consobrinus", a word for the child of one's mother's sister, and this narrower sense of a maternal cousin was gradually widened to cover cousins in general. English has used "cousin" for centuries, so the suffix is what gives the compound its distinctive shape. Because "-ship" is so productive, speakers could form "cousinship" whenever they needed a name for the bond itself, rather than relying on the older vocabulary of kinship terms.

Synonyms: kinship, relationship, consanguinity