Niece

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /niːs/

Definitions

1. A female offspring of a person's sibling or sibling-in-law who is often a young relative
2. A daughter of one's brother or sister that is part of a family relationship
3. A girl or woman who is the child of a brother or sister, or the child of a brother-in-law or sister-in-law

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "niece" is that it once meant granddaughter as often as it meant the child of a sibling. The Latin source, "neptis," was used for a granddaughter, and the Latin word for a grandson, "nepos," later gave English "nephew" and the related "nephew" sense, so the two terms were originally close relatives in meaning. English took its form through Middle English "nece," which carried the same broad sense of "niece, granddaughter," before the narrower modern meaning settled in. The route ran through Old French, where "nece" kept that same double meaning, and modern French "nièce" still means only niece. Along the way the Latin word was reshaped in Late Latin as "neptia," which is the form that lies directly behind the Old French word. The word has a doublet, "nift," which is a sibling form from the same ancestral root but taken into English by a different path and now largely obsolete.

Synonyms: sister's child, brother's child