11 little-known words for specific family members
Share this with your niblings
Those crazy niblings!
Those crazy niblings! (Thinkstock)

The words we use for family members in English are specific about some things, and vague about others. Our vocabulary marks a distinction between our mother and her sisters (some languages use one word for mother and maternal aunts), but doesn't say whether siblings are older or younger (some languages have different words for brother and sister depending on their age relative to you). We lack words that pick out particular family members (we have "cousin," but what about child-of-my-father's-brother?) as well as certain general terms (we have "siblings" for brothers and sisters, but what about nieces and nephews?).






Your mother's sister. Old English.

Your father's brother. Old English.

7. EAM
Your mother's brother. It survived in some dialects as "eme," with a more general meaning of uncle or friend, into the 19th century.

Your half-brother from the same mother. A term used in old legal documents or other discussions of inheritance and succession. Half-siblings of the same mother are "uterine" and of the same father are "consanguine."

Full brother, sharing both parents. Nothing to do with Germany. The "german" here is related to "germane," which originally meant "of the same parents" and later came to mean just related or relevant.

Full cousin, sharing all four grandparents. Comes about when a pair of sisters marries a pair of brothers.




Subscribe to the Week