cousinship

plural cousinships

1. countableuncountableThe state of being cousins, or the relationship that exists among cousins.

   “How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?”

   1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

   3 more examples

   His creed of determinism was such that it almost amounted to a vice, and quite amounted, on its negative side, to a renunciative philosophy which had cousinship with that of Schopenhauer and Leopardi.

   1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles

   What he repudiated was cousinship with the ape, and the implied suspicion of a rudimentary tail, because it was offensive to his sense of his own dignity, and because he thought that apes were ridiculous, and tails diabolical when associated with the erect posture.

   1921, George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

   He describes a beautiful thought experiment to demonstrate a rabbit’s cousinship to a leopard.

   2009 October 11, Nicholas Wade, “Evolution All Around”, in The New York Times

   Synonyms: cousinhood