kinsman

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English kinnesman, also cunnesman and kenesman,^[2][3] formed from Middle English kinnes + man, with the genitive of kin as its first part.^[4][3][5] Etymonline and Dictionary.com carry it back to late Old English cynnes mannum and cinnes man respectively,^[6][7] while the OED treats it as an early Middle English formation.^[4] The noun kin is from Old English cynn (“family, race, kind”), from Proto-Germanic *kunją (“race, generation, descent”).^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A male relative by blood, and also by marriage: the Middle English Dictionary's first quotation is in the Peterborough Chronicle, in the annal for 1129, before 1131,^[2] and the OED's first is in the Ormulum, about 1175.^[4] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1100–50,^[7] Merriam-Webster to the 12th century,^[3] and Etymonline to about 1200.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Early use was already wider than family: in Middle English the word could also mean a compatriot, friend or follower.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave only "a man of the same race or family",^[8] and that wider sense of shared race or stock is still in Merriam-Webster and Collins.^[3][9] The feminine kinswoman is recorded from about 1400.^[6] In East Anglian dialect the word narrowed to a particular relative, a cousin-german, and in Suffolk a nephew.^[10] The OED now calls it chiefly literary.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1131 – a male relative, in the Peterborough Chronicle.^[2] The OED's first record of the sense is from about 1175, in the Ormulum.^[4]
• c. 1200 – the spelling kenesmen in the Vices and Virtues.^[2][6]
• c. 1400 – the feminine, kinswoman.^[6]
• 1830 – in Suffolk dialect, a nephew, in Forby's glossary.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A male relative by blood, or more loosely by marriage: He left the farm to a distant kinsman.^[3][9][4]
2. A man of the same race, tribe or ethnic stock.^[3][9]

Related words

• kin
• kinswoman
• man

Usage notes

The Century Dictionary (1902), quoted by Etymonline, held that the word properly applies only to a relative by blood, as opposed to relatives by marriage, whom it calls affines.^[6] Merriam-Webster, Collins and the OED allow the wider use.^[3][9][4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)