kin

Meanings

Noun

• Race; family; breed; kind.
• Persons of the same race or family; kindred.
• One or more relatives, such as siblings or cousins, taken collectively.
• Relationship; same-bloodedness or affinity; near connection or alliance, as of those having common descent.
• Kind; sort; manner; way.
• A primitive Chinese musical instrument of the cittern kind, with from five to twenty-five silken strings.
• Alternative of k'in

Adjective

• Related by blood or marriage, akin. Generally used in "kin to".

Verb

• To identify with; as in empathize or emotionally relate to a fictional character.
• Pronunciation spelling of can

Origin

• 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, from *ǵenh₁-. Cognate with Scots kin ("relatives, kinfolk"), North Frisian kinn, kenn, Dutch kunne ("gender, sex"), Middle Low German kunne ("gender, sex, race, family, lineage"), Danish køn ("gender, sex"), Swedish kön ("gender, sex"), Icelandic kyn ("gender"), and through Indo-European, with Latin genus, Ancient Greek γένος, Sanskrit जनस्, Albanian dhen.