kin
/kɪn/ noun, adjective, verb
Also a form of can Kinshasa qin
Forms kins kinning kinned
- noun Race; family; breed; kind. “the starfish and its kin the sea urchin”
- noun (collectively) Persons of the same race or family; kindred.
- noun One or more relatives, such as siblings or cousins, taken collectively.
- noun Relationship; same-bloodedness or affinity; near connection or alliance, as of those having common descent.
- adjective (uncommon) Related by blood or marriage, akin. (It is more common to form sentences using the noun instead.) “It turns out my back-fence neighbor is kin to one of my co-workers.”
- verb (transitive, fandom slang) To identify with; as in spiritually connect to a fictional or non-fictional being.
- noun (fandom slang) A fictional or non-fictional being whom one spiritually connects to.
- noun (fandom slang, in the form (character name) kin) Someone who identifies as a certain fictional character.
Synonyms
kinsperson family kin group kinship group kindred clan tribe akin blood-related cognate consanguine consanguineous consanguineal
Etymology
From Middle English kyn, from Old English cynn (“kind, sort, rank”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuni, from Proto-Germanic *kunją (“race, generation, descent”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁yom, from *ǵenh₁- (“to produce”).
Cognate with Scots kin (“relatives, kinfolk”), North Frisian kinn, kenn (“gender, race, family, kinship”), Dutch kunne (“gender, sex”), Middle Low German kunne (“gender, sex, race, family, lineage”), Danish køn (“gender, sex”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk kjønn (“gender, sex”), Swedish kön (“gender, sex”), Faroese and Icelandic kyn (“gender”), Finnish kunnia (“honour, glory”), Ingrian kunnia (“reputation”), and through Indo-European, with Latin genus (“kind, sort, ancestry, birth”), Ancient Greek γένος (génos, “kind, race”), Sanskrit जनस् (jánas, “kind, race”), Albanian dhen (“(herd of) small cattle”).
Clipping of fictionkin.
Borrowed from Mandarin 琴 (qín), from a non-palatal dialect akin to Peking; or less likely, from Japanese 琴 (kin).
An irregular romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 晉 /晋 (Jìn).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A primitive Chinese instrument of the cittern kind, with from five to twenty-five silken strings. Riemann.
- noun Relationship, consanguinity, or affinity; connection by birth or marriage; kindred; near connection or alliance, as of those having common descent.
- noun Relatives; persons of the same family or race.
- adjective Of the same nature or kind; kinder. "Kin to the king." Shak.
Etymology [OE. kin, cun, AS. cynn kin, kind, race, people; akin to cennan to beget, D. kunne sex, OS. & OHG. kunni kin, race, Icel. kyn, Goth. kuni, G. & D. kind a child, L. genus kind, race, L. gignere to beget, Gr. jan to beget. Kind, King, Gender kind, Nation.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “kin”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details