kin

kin · noun, adjective¹

1. Proto-Indo-European · inherited from*ǵn̥h₁yom
2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*kunją“race, generation, descent”
3. Proto-West Germanic · inherited from*kuni
4. Old English · inherited fromcynn“kind, sort, rank”
5. Middle English · inherited fromkyn
6. English todaykin

From Middle English kyn, from Old English cynn (“kind, sort, rank”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuni, from Proto-Germanic *kunją (“race, generation, descent”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁yom, from *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”), Danish køn (“gender, sex”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk kjønn (“gender, sex”), Swedish kön (“gender, sex”), Faroese and Icelandic kyn (“gender”), Finnish kunnia (“honour, glory”), Ingrian kunnia (“reputation”), and through Indo-European, with Latin genus (“kind, sort, ancestry, birth”), Ancient Greek γένος (génos, “kind, race”), Sanskrit जनस् (jánas, “kind, race”), Albanian dhen (“(herd of) small cattle”).

kin · noun²

1. Japanese · borrowed from琴
2. English todaykin

Borrowed from Mandarin 琴 (qín), from a non-palatal dialect akin to Peking; or less likely, from Japanese 琴 (kin).

kin · verb, noun³

Clipping of fictionkin.

Kin · proper noun⁴

1. Chinese · borrowed from晉 /晋
2. English todayKin

An irregular romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 晉 /晋 (Jìn).

Kin · proper noun⁵

See Kinshasa

Words from the same roots