Kin
nounA person's family and blood relations considered collectively.
How to spell kin
3 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce kin
What does kin mean?
- nounA person's family and blood relations considered collectively.
Kin in a sentence
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She listed her next of kin on the employment form.
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She travelled north to spend the holidays with her kin.
Where does kin come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a very old native English word, descending from the Old English cynn, which meant a family, a race, or a kind of thing. It traces back to a shared Germanic root that also gave Dutch and German their words for sex or gender and lineage, and it is distantly related to the Latin genus 'birth, race' and the Greek genos, all springing from an ancient root meaning 'to give birth' or 'to beget'. Because the idea behind it is 'those born of the same stock', kin has always pointed at blood relatives and family connection. The same root sits quietly inside the everyday word 'kind', both the adjective and the noun, since a kind originally meant a natural class or family of things. The spelling has stayed remarkably short and stable, which is why it slips into compounds like 'kinship' and 'kinsfolk' so neatly.
How the word is built
- kin (root; from Old English cynn meaning family or race; no prefix or suffix)
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