Niece

How to spell niece

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce niece

What does niece mean?

1. nounThe daughter of one's brother or sister, or of one's spouse's brother or sister.

Niece in a sentence

• My niece is starting university in the autumn.

• He set up a small savings account for his niece.

Where does niece come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English in the early 1300s from Old French nièce, which itself descended from the Latin neptis, meaning 'granddaughter' and also 'niece'. The Latin neptis was the feminine partner of nepos, which gave us 'nephew', and both trace back to an ancient Indo-European root for a grandchild or descendant. In its earliest English use 'niece' could also mean 'granddaughter' or even a more distant female relative, before it narrowed to its modern meaning: the daughter of one's brother or sister. The 'ie' spelling reflects its French ancestry and obediently follows the old 'i before e except after c' rhyme, since the c here is pronounced as a soft s and the i still comes first. That same neptis root is the reason 'niece' and 'nephew' look so little alike despite being the matching female and male terms.

How the word is built

• niece (single root, from Latin neptis 'granddaughter, niece'); no separable prefix or suffix