cousin

noun

1. Chiefly with a qualifying word: Any relation (especially a distant one) who is not a direct ancestor or descendant but part of a person's extended family; a kinsman or kinswoman.

   “Salute Andronicus⸝ and Junia my coſyns⸝ which were preſoners with me alſo⸝ which are wele taken amonge the apoſtles⸝ and were in Chriſt before me.”

   “Hovv novv brother, vvhere is my coſen your ſonne, hath he prouided this muſique?”

   “Couſin Harlovve, ſaid my aunt Hervey, allovv me to ſay, That my couſin Clary's prudence may be confided in.”

   “The house and park and a small estate around it were entailed on a distant cousin, and could not be alienated; […]”

2. (specifically)Chiefly with a qualifying word: Any relation (especially a distant one) who is not a direct ancestor or descendant but part of a person's extended family; a kinsman or kinswoman.

   “[…] I never knevv the marriage of ſecond Coſens forbidden, but by them vvho at the ſame time forbad the marriage of the firſt: […] And vve find that Iſaac married his ſecond Coſen, and that vvas more for it then ever could be ſaid againſt it.”

3. (specifically)Chiefly with a qualifying word: Any relation (especially a distant one) who is not a direct ancestor or descendant but part of a person's extended family; a kinsman or kinswoman.

   “Although we were cousins, we grew up like sisters.”

   “Cooſen Aumarle. / Hovv far brought you high Hereford on his vvay? / […] / VVhat ſaid our couſin vvhen you parted vvith him?”

   “[O]thers vvho are allied to us at a great diſtance, as the Children of Uncles, or of Coſens, or their Children or ſuch like, reſemble thoſe parts vvhich may be cut off vvithout pain, as Hair, Nailes, and the like.”

   “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.”

4. (in-plural)A person of an ethnicity or nationality regarded as closely related to someone of another ethnicity or nationality.

   “[H]e had received such good accounts from the Upper Nez Percés of their cousins, 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 Australian cousins.”

5. Used as a term of address for someone whom one is close to; also, (preceding a first name, sometimes capitalized as Cousin) a title for such a person.

   “I aſſure you, my dirty Couſin! 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, my cousin 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?”

6. Used by a monarch to address another monarch, or a noble; specifically (British) in commissions and writs by the Crown: used in this way to address a viscount or another peer of higher rank.

   “My noble L[ords] and Coſens 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.”

   “Therefore vve meruaile much our Coſin France / VVould in ſo iuſt a buſineſſe, ſhut his boſome / Againſt our borrovving prayers.”

7. (also, attributive, figuratively)Something kindred or related to something else; a relative.

   “Her dolour ſoone ſhe ceaſt, and on her dight / Her Helmet, to her Courſer mounting light: / Her former ſorrovv into ſuddein vvrath, / Both cooſen 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 next coſin to the dropſie, […]”

   “[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 by Cozen-ſvvords, kill'd by their ovvne.”

   “Jerry Rawlings has pissed off not only the Company (the CIA) but its cousin (the Mossad) in the Middle East.”

   “Partnering, along with its less irritating cousin "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.”

8. (obsolete)A female sexual partner who is not a person's wife; specifically, a prostitute.

   “Viola Svvagger vvorſe then a Lieutenant among freſhvvater ſouldiers, call me your loue, your ingle, your coſen, or ſo; but ſiſter at no hand. / Fuſt[igo]. No, no, it ſhall be cozen, 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 my cozen?”

9. (obsolete)A person who is swindled; a dupe.

   “[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 a Cozen ſaies one, At which word out flies the Taker, and thus giues the onſet vpon my olde Pennyfather.”

10. (obsolete, rare)A person who womanizes; a seducer, a womanizer.

    “Those whom Venus is said to rule, […] Wenchers, Leachers, Shakers, Smockers, Cousins, Cullies, Stallions and Bellibumpers; […]”

11. (slang)A fan of the character Lucien LaCroix from the Canadian television series Forever Knight.

    “> Am I the only one in the world who's actually *rooting* for Nick > to bite somebody, lose all his humanity points, and start back at square > one? […] No, you're not the only one. Sounds to me like you're a Cousin.”

    “of course, even a Cousin comme moi has to admit that GWD [Geraint Wyn Davies] can do the wicked hot vampire thing too, when given the opportunity...”

    “Oh man, now I'm just ranting, but hey, this is my computer, my internet (my phone line ;) and on top of all that, I am a COUSIN so I will rant a LITTLE about how one of my favorite vampires (next to Uncle, of course ;) meets my favorite British author :))))”

verb

1. (rare, transitive)To address (someone) as "cousin".

   “[N]o, no, let me alone to cozen you rarely.”

   “At length she seemed to relent, or changed her tactics, for she looked over his shoulder as he sketched, and Cousined him two or three times as usual.”

   “Though he called Mrs. Merrit aunt, and cousined 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.”

2. (also, rare, reflexive, transitive)To regard (oneself or someone) as a cousin to another person.

   “[T]he old gentleman took me into the house and introduced me to the family, where I was at once cousined 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.”

   “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 and cousined within an inch of my life.”

3. (US, informal, intransitive, regional)To associate with someone or something on a close basis.

   “In an appendix to The 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 least cousining) of word and thing.”

   “[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.”

   “The UK has fiscal arithmetic cousined with that of Greece, but is dealing with it.”

4. (US, informal, intransitive, regional)To visit a cousin or other relation.

   “You know when you get up in the morning that you have a certain quantity of cousining to go through before the day is over, and you make up your mind to it; read a page of Seneca, add a verse to your litany, and commit yourself to Providence, like a wise man and a Christian.”

   “Who then that has a cousin, has aught to say against cousining? We do indeed often her sneeringly the expression of "Dutch cousining" or "Yankee cousining," 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.”

   “It isn't the thing for a man to be like a stranger to his own flesh and blood. I'm going cousining, Sue, down East, and I'll hunt up my relations.”

   “The pretty wren perches now in the Governor's house—a-cousining, a-cousining.”

   “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.”

name

1. A surname from Middle English.