Thenoun is derived fromMiddle Englishcosin,cosine,cosyn(“blood relative, kinsman or kinswoman; any relative; nephew or niece; first cousin; grandson or granddaughter; descendant; godchild or godparent, or a relative of a godchild or godparent; (figurative) closely related or similar thing”)[and other forms],[1] and then:
1660,Jeremy Taylor, “Rule 3. The Judicial Law ofMoses is Annul'd, or Abrogated, and Retains No Obliging Power either in Whole or in Part over any Christian Prince, Commonwealth, or Person.”, inDuctor Dubitantium, or the Rule of Conscience in All Her General Measures;[…], volume I, London:[…] James Flesher, forRichard Royston[…],→OCLC, book II (Of the Rule of Conscience.[…]), paragraph 89,page318:
[…] I never knevv the marriage of ſecondCoſens forbidden, but by them vvho at the ſame time forbad the marriage of the firſt:[…] And vve find thatIſaac married his ſecondCoſen, and that vvas more for it then ever could be ſaid againſt it.
Cooſen Aumarle. / Hovv far brought you high Hereford on his vvay? /[…] / VVhat ſaid ourcouſin vvhen you parted vvith him?
1659–1660,Thomas Stanley, “Chap[ter] III An Explication of the Pythagorick Symbolls. ByJamblichus.”, inThe History of Philosophy, the Third and Last Volume,[…], volume III, London:[…]Humphrey Moseley, andThomas Dring,[…],→OCLC, 4th part (Containing the Sceptick Sect),page120:
[O]thers vvho are allied to us at a great diſtance, as the Children of Uncles, or ofCoſens, or their Children or ſuch like, reſemble thoſe parts vvhich may be cut off vvithout pain, as Hair, Nailes, and the like.
2023 December 19, Faith Hill, “The Great Cousin Decline”, inThe Atlantic[1]:
Despite being related by blood and commonly in the same generation,cousins can end up with completely different upbringings, class backgrounds, values, and interests. And yet, they share something rare and invaluable: They know what it’s like to be part of the same particular family.
[H]e had received such good accounts from the Upper Nez Percés of theircousins, the Lower Nez Percés, that he had become desirous of knowing them as friends and brothers.
Gusts of letters blow in from all corners of the British Isles. These are presently reinforced by Canada in full blast. A few weeks later the Anglo-Indians weigh in. In due course we have the help of our Australiancousins.
I aſſure you, my dirtyCouſin! thof his Skin be ſo vvhite, and to be ſure, it is the moſt vvhiteſt that ever vvas ſeen, I am a Chriſtian as vvell as he, and no-body can ſay that I am baſe born,[…]
Marry quep, mycousin the weaver! And why the cucking-stool, I pray?—because my young lady is comely, and the young squire is a man of mettle, reverence to his beard that is yet to come?
My noble L[ords] andCoſens all, good morrovv, / I haue beene long a ſleeper, but I hope / My abſence doth neglect no great deſignes, / VVhich by my preſence might haue been concluded.
In all vvrits, and commiſſions, and other formal inſtruments, the king, vvhen he mentions any peer of the degree of an earl, alvvays ſtiles him "truſty and vvell belovedcouſin:" an appellation as antient as the reign ofHenry IV; vvho being either by his vvife, his mother, or his ſiſters, actually related or allied to every earl in the kingdom, artfully and conſtantly acknovvledged that connexion in all his letters and other public acts; from vvhence the uſage has deſcended to his ſucceſſors, though the reaſon has long ago failed.
Her dolour ſoone ſhe ceaſt, and on her dight / Her Helmet, to her Courſer mounting light: / Her former ſorrovv into ſuddein vvrath, / Bothcooſen paſſions of diſtroubled ſpright, / Conuerting, forth ſhe beates the duſty path; / Loue and deſpight attonce her courage kindled hath.
The euill habit of the body, is nextcoſin to the dropſie,[…]
1608,[Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “[Du Bartas His Second Weeke,[…]. Abraham.[…].] The Captaines. The IIII. Part of the III. Day of the II. Week.”, inJosuah Sylvester, transl.,Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes[…], 3rd edition, London:[…] Humfrey Lownes[and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson[…]], published1611,→OCLC,page499:
[T]he friends that in one Couch did ſleep, / Each others blade in eithers breſt do ſteep: / And all the Camp vvith head-les dead is ſovven, / Cut-off byCozen-ſvvords, kill'd by their ovvne.
1994, Joel Bainerman, “The Dark Side of the Israeli–American Relationship”, inInside the Covert Operations of the CIA & Israel’s Mossad, New York, N.Y.: S.P.I. Books,→ISBN,page18:
Jerry Rawlings has pissed off not only the Company (the CIA) but itscousin (the Mossad) in the Middle East.
Partnering, along with its less irritatingcousin "partnership", crops up all over the place, being equally useful to the lazy jargoneer and the lazy policy-maker. It has been said that there is no noun which cannot be verbed; in the same way, there is now nothing, concrete or abstract, which cannot be partnered.
2015 July 23, Tessa Berenson, “NASA Discovers New Earth-like Planet”, inTime[3], New York, N.Y.:Time Inc.,→ISSN,→OCLC, archived fromthe original on2023-03-20:
NASA has discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting around a star, which a NASA researcher called a "bigger, oldercousin to Earth."
Viola Svvagger vvorſe then a Lieutenant among freſhvvater ſouldiers, call me your loue, your ingle, yourcoſen, or ſo; but ſiſter at no hand. /Fuſt[igo]. No, no, it ſhall becozen, or rather cuz that's the gulling vvord betvveene the Cittizens vviues and their old dames, that man em to the garden;[…] [W]hy ſiſter do you thinke I'le cunny-catch you, vvhen you are mycozen?
[I]f a plaine fellow well and cleanely apparelled, either in home-ſpun ruſſet or freeze (as the ſeaſon requires) with a five pouch at his girdle, happen to appeare in his ruſticall likenes: there is aCozen ſaies one, At which word out flies theTaker, and thus giues the onſet vpon my oldePennyfather.
People who have commongrandparents but different parents arefirst cousins. People who have commongreat-grandparents but no common grandparents and different parents aresecond cousins, and so on. In other words, one of a person’s first cousin’s parents is one of that person’s parents’ siblings, and one of a person’s second cousin’s grandparents is one of that person’s grandparents’ siblings. For example, if Phil’s father and Marie’s mother are siblings, Phil and Marie are first cousins; and if Lee’s grandfather and Sarah’s grandmother are siblings, Lee and Sarah are second cousins.
The child of a person’s first cousin or the first cousin of a person’s parent is that person’s first cousinonce removed, the grandchild of a person’s first cousin or the first cousin of a person’s grandparent is that person’s first cousintwice removed, and so on. For example, if Phil and Marie are first cousins, and Marie has a son Andre, then Phil and Andre arefirst cousins once removed. If Andre has a daughter Sarah (Marie’s granddaughter), then Phil and Sarah arefirst cousins twice removed.
The married partner of a person’s cousin, or the cousin of a person’s married partner, is acousin-in-law.
Apatrilineal or paternal cousin is a father’s niece or nephew, and amatrilineal or maternal cousin a mother’s. Paternal and maternalparallel cousins are a father’s brother’s child and mother’s sister’s child, respectively; paternal and maternalcross cousins are a father’s sister’s child and mother’s brother’s child, respectively.
Maori:tungāne(male cousin of a female),tuakana,(older male cousin of a male or older female cousin of a female),teina,taina(younger male cousin of a male or younger female cousin of a female),tuahine(female cousin of a male)
something kindred or related to something else—seerelative
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Though he called Mrs. Merrit aunt, andcousined all her daughters, he was really no relative whatever. His father dying when he was a small boy, he had been kindly adopted by that father's step-brother, who had married into the Merritt family.
1833, G. Herbert Rodwell,The Chimney Piece. A Farce, in One Act.[…] (Miller’s Modern Acting Drama,[…];no. 5), London: John Miller,[…],→OCLC, scene i,page 2:
Mrs. M[uddlebrain].[…] Mary, who is this young man? /Mary. That's my cousin, ma'am, just stept in to lend us a helping hand in placing the things. /[…] /Shuffle. What the devil did she say about a tall grenadier, and the pantry? Mrs. Shuffle! Mrs. Shuffle! /Mary. Hush! Are you mad? Do you want to tell all the world that we're married, and get me turned away? /Shuffle. No; but the grenadier? /Mary. Came to see the cook; so to prevent all the fat being in the fire, Icousined him, and made him a relation. /Shuffle. Yes; and remember you'vecousined me too.
1877 May 28, J[acob] Sam[ue]l Vandersloot, quoting Cyrus Sturdivant, “‘To God be All Praise’”, inThe True Path; or, The Murphy Movement and Gospel Temperance.[…], Philadelphia, Pa.: William Flint,[…], published1877,→OCLC,page244:
[T]he old gentleman took me into the house and introduced me to the family, where I was at oncecousined by them all.
[A] maiden well braced in nerve and muscle, / Far from sensual ease, to be mother of lustiest Britons, /Cousined to Romans in strength and in breadth of masterful Empire.
1885 September, “The Old Owl of the Sron”, in[John Stuart] Blackie, transl., edited byAlexander Mackenzie,The Celtic Magazine:[…], volume X, number CXIX, Inverness, Inverness-shire: A[lexander] & W. Mackenzie,[…],→OCLC,page522:
O Donald, thou wert the boy, / Steel to the bone, and like thee none! /Cousined wert thou to the great Clan Chattan, / Thou, the nodding cliff's foster son.
Let me say in the beginning that even if I wanted to avoid Texas I could not, for I am wived in Texas and mother-in-lawed and uncled and aunted andcousined within an inch of my life.
In an appendix toThe Mechanic Muse, he [Hugh Kenner] finds Victorian symbolist practice serving to release the signifier from centuries of post-Enlightenment confusion about the proper wedding (or at leastcousining) of word and thing.
2007, Caperton Tissot, quoting Elise Chapin, “Some Offered Healing, Some Found Healing”, in Willem Tissot, editor,History between the Lines: Women’s Lives and Saranac Lake Customs, Jay, N.Y.: Graphics North,→ISBN,pages110–111:
[P]atients would escape into the town for a bit of a fling or "cousining" as it was called. "Cousining" was a Saranac Lake euphemism that applied to a couple, both of them patients and sometimes already married with a spouse living far away, who spent time together or dated each other.
A noun use.
2012, David Roche, Bob McKee, “The Moral Failure of Democracy”, inDemocrisis: Democracy Caused the Debt Crisis. Will It Survive It?,[London]: Independent Strategy,→ISBN,pages12–13:
The UK has fiscal arithmeticcousined with that of Greece, but is dealing with it.
You know when you get up in the morning that you have a certain quantity ofcousining to go through before the day is over, and you make up your mind to it; read a page ofSeneca, add a verse to your litany, and commit yourself to Providence, like a wise man and a Christian.
A noun use.
1845 October 20, B. C. True, “Cousining in Autumn”, in Thomas L. Harris, John Tanner, editors,The Gavel: A Monthly Periodical Devoted toOdd Fellowship and General Literature, volume II, number 3, Albany, N.Y.: John Tanner, published November 1845,→OCLC,page80:
Who then that has a cousin, has aught to say againstcousining? We do indeed often her sneeringly the expression of "Dutchcousining" or "Yankeecousining," as if there was something mean in the act of visiting those who are "next of kin." To such as do it, I feel an unconquerable aversion or excessive pity; as they appear censorious or betray a stupidity that cannot feel a consanguine tie beyond their hearth.
A noun use.
1887 June, Herminius Cobb, “[The Household.] Mr. Blossom Visits His Relations.”, inThe American Magazine: Supplement, volume I (New Series; volume VI overall), number 2, New York, N.Y.: The American Magazine Company,[…]; London: The Christian Million Company,→OCLC,page245, column 1:
It isn't the thing for a man to be like a stranger to his own flesh and blood. I'm goingcousining, Sue, down East, and I'll hunt up my relations.
In 1878 they were married in the Mormon Temple in St. George, 300 miles away, and he drove her back home in a hay wagon in eight days. They "cousined" (stopped with relatives) all the way.
