Kinne

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An obsolete term for one's relatives, meaning the people related to a person by blood or marriage
2. Archaic noun for family ties, referring to a group of people descended from a common ancestor
3. A old-fashioned word for kinsfolk, the collective body of relatives bound together by birth or marriage

Etymology: Before "kin" settled into its modern spelling, Middle English writers often spelled it "kinne," a form that tracks the Old English "cynn" more closely than the modern word does. Both spellings mean the same thing: a group of people related by blood or marriage, and by extension a family line or race. The Old English word came from a Germanic root that also gave modern German "Kind" and English "kindred." The most surprising relative of this word is "kind." It comes from the same Old English root, and its early sense was "nature" or "family character," as in the phrase "after his kind," meaning "according to his nature." The sense of "sort" or "type" came later. Because "kind" and "kin" share a source, the modern meanings of "kind" as "generous" and "kin" as "relatives" both grew from that older idea of shared nature.

Synonyms: kin, kindred, family, relatives