Kin

Pronunciation

• enPR: kÄ­n, IPA: /kɪn/
• Rhymes: -ɪn

From Middle English kin, kyn, ken, kun, from Old English cynn ("kind, sort, rank, quality, family, generation, offspring, pedigree, kin, race, people, gender, sex, propriety, etiquette"), from Proto-Germanic *kunją ("race, generation, descent"), from Proto-Indo-European *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"), German Künne, Kunne ("kin, kind, race"), Danish køn ("gender, sex"), Swedish kön ("gender, sex"), Icelandic kyn ("gender"), and through Indo-European, with Latin genus ("kind, sort, ancestry, birth"), Ancient Greek γένος (genos, "kind, race"), Albanian dhen ("(herd of) small cattle").

Full definition of kin

Noun

1. Race; family; breed; kind.
2. (collectively) Persons of the same race or family; kindred.
• Francis BaconYou are of kin, and so a friend to their persons.
3. One or more relatives, such as siblings or cousins, taken collectively.
4. Relationship; same-bloodedness or affinity; near connection or alliance, as of those having common descent.
5. Kind; sort; manner; way.

Derived terms

• akin
• kind
• kindred
• kinfolk
• kinship
• kinsman
• kinswoman
• kith and kin
• next of kin

Adjective

1. Related by blood or marriage, akin. Generally used in "kin to".It turns out my back-fence neighbor is kin to one of my co-workers.

Noun

1. A primitive Chinese musical instrument of the cittern kind, with from five to twenty-five silken strings.
• 1840, Elijah Coleman Bridgman, Samuel Wells Williams, The Chinese Repository (page 40)If a musician were going to give a lecture upon the mathematical part of his art, he would find a very elegant substitute for the monochord in the Chinese kin.

Anagrams

• ink