Nieces and nephews in one word

There seems to be no «official» word for «nieces and nephews».

You will find «nibling«, by analogy with sibling. (But it is mentioned only in the «New Words & Slang» section of Merriam-Webster, or in sites like urbandictionary.com)

In this Yahoo answers thread, KISS = Keep It Simple, Stupid‘s answer also mentions:

• that there is no encompassing word for aunt/uncle either
• that there is no male/female form of cousin.

The article «There isn’t a word for it» (by Neville Goodman, British Journal of General Practice, 2005) also confirms that there is no word for nephews and nieces, and makes the following (humorous) suggestions:

The word sibling comes from Old English, and just means related by blood. I suggest taking the parental ‘p’ to replace the ‘s’, so aunts and uncles are ‘piblings’. Following the pattern, nephews and nieces become ‘niblings’, a nice word that describes what they do to their piblings’ bank balances at Christmas and birthdays.

You can find the term used recently in this blog post «The Christmas Gift that Keeps On Giving», but you can also find it in one of the episodes of an old 1980 adventure series «The Moomins»:

^{(from «Moomin Winter in Moomin Book 5»)}

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!

Asked by: Lyda Kohler

Score: 5/5
(13 votes)

In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject’s sibling or sibling-in-law. The converse relationship, the relationship from the niece or nephew’s perspective, is that of an aunt or uncle.

Is there one word for nieces and nephews?

Nibling is a gender-neutral term used to refer to a child of one’s sibling as a replacement for «niece» or «nephew».

What do you mean by nephews and nieces?

A nephew is the son of someone’s brother or sister. A niece is the daughter of the person’s brother or sister. To the nephew or niece, the person is their uncle or aunt.

Is it nieces or niece’s?

The plural form of niece is nieces.

Are nieces and nephews cousins?

The son or daughter of a person’s uncle or aunt; a first cousin. … Any relation who is not a direct ancestor or descendant but part of one’s extended family; one more distantly related than an uncle, aunt, granduncle, grandaunt, nephew, niece, grandnephew, grandniece, etc.

41 related questions found

Are you someone who has a sibling or siblings with multiple offspring of varying genders you’d like to refer to efficiently? Would you like a single word that could apply generally to all of them, be they infants, wee ones, tween or teen ones, or even full-blown adults? Perhaps you’d appreciate a word that was something like the word sibling itself, which refers quite neatly to the other children of one’s parents, regardless of gender.

Well, we have some news: such a word exists. It’s not yet entered in our dictionaries, but it’s out there, and it’s being used with increasing frequency: nibling.

That’s right: nibling. Its ibling comes from sibling, of course, and its n comes from niece and nephew.

Origins of Nibling

The word’s coinage is widely credited to Samuel E. Martin, a professor of Far Eastern linguistics at Yale University who is better known for many things, among them developing a romanization system for transliterating Korean. The year 1951 is commonly attached to his coinage, but we’ve been unable to find the primary source information.

Nibling, however, mostly languished in linguistic obscurity for its first five decades of existence. Merriam-Webster received a letter from a writer in Blain, Pennsylvania, concerning the term in 1996, but the reply our correspondent received informed him that we had no evidence of it in use.

Increase in Use and Popularity

As the previous millennium has receded, however, nibling has started to show signs of life. We received another letter concerning the word in 2005, this time from a correspondent in Ft. Lauderdale. And evidence of the word in use began to appear in print as well, though more often on the other side of the proverbial pond:

Schoolchildren in Paulton are campaigning to get a new word into the English dictionary. They are urging friends and family to use the word ‘niblings‘ instead of the phrase nieces and nephews in an attempt to earn it a place in the Oxford English Dictionary.
— Chris Allen, The Bristol (UK) Post, 30 Apr. 2004

The Guardian recently published a report on a woman talking about her «auntistic» relationship with her «niblings.» You quickly realise that the words wrapped in ICs are «not real words» in the sense of existing in dictionaries (though that may change). Yet their meanings are clear: «auntistic» in the manner of an aunt; «nibling» an ingenious, gender-neutral collective term, on the model of «sibling,» for nephews and nieces.
— Ruth Wajnryb, The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald, 19 June 2004

In 2005, nibling was a runner-up in the New Word Challenge of the Independent on Sunday (London) newspaper, a contest run in collaboration with the good people at Collins Dictionary. The word is in fact entered in the Collins Dictionary, albeit as of 2012, and as a user-submitted term. Its «Approval Status» is «Pending Investigation.»

Examples closer to home exist as well:

In a recent column, I bemoaned the lack of a gender-neutral term for nieces and nephews. Lillian Kezerian of Hartford already has one—»niblings.» «It’s not original with me,» she writes, «and I honestly don’t remember where I first saw it. My nieces and nephews have liked it.»
— Rob Kyff, The Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, 23 May 2006

As the second decade of the new century comes to a close, the word continues to be more common in the UK (and elsewhere) than in the US, but it is showing some signs of increased use here as well. In 2018 the word was featured in a trivia quiz in The Toledo (Ohio) Blade: «In the world of family relationships, what is a ‘nibling’?» The answer was «a niece or nephew.»

But in British sources, the term is undeniably less mysterious:

She looked delighted to be spending time with her goddaughter Leonor, who is the daughter of her brother André Sampaio, and was born in February 2017…. her darling nibling …
— no byline, The Daily Mail (UK), 4 Nov. 2018

This is how it goes for my nephews and nieces (henceforth, niblings) each Christmas morn, when my packages finally reach their grubby little paws. Issued directly from the North Pole, these are their own, personal and private letters from Santa Claus …
— Séamas O’Reilly, The Observer (London), 16 Dec. 2018

If nibling has for most of its history merely puttered along, it is now moving with new purpose. While initially considered useful for its efficiency, as seen in the Séamas O’Reilly quote immediately above, it is now increasingly called upon as a means to gender accuracy:

My «nibling,» the gender-neutral term for nephew or niece, is neither male nor female, but both.
— «Proud Aunt,» «Ask Amy» in The Chicago Tribune, 9 Jan. 2014

There was that benevolent look for his genderqueer «nibling» (read: gender-neutral niece or nephew). It was big-eyed and full of wonder with a smile that gave you warmth.
— Joey Hood, The Nashville (Tennessee) Scene, 23 June 2016

Another [fan] suggested the term «nibling» to the singer, which is widely considered a gender-neutral term for a sibling’s child.
— Chantal Da Silva, The Independent (UK), 24 July 2017

Poke around a bit on the Internet and you will find that it is popping up all over, and being embraced with pleasure. The future of nibling at this point looks pretty bright.

Words We’re Watching talks about words we are increasingly seeing in use but that have not yet met our criteria for entry.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

«Niece» redirects here. For a more distant relation, see second niece. For the stock car team, see Niece Motorsports.

«Nibling» redirects here. Not to be confused with Nibbling.

«Great nephew» redirects here. For the racehorse, see Great Nephew.

In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of an individual’s sibling or sibling-in-law. A niece is female and a nephew is male, and they would call their parents’ siblings aunt or uncle. The gender-neutral term nibling has been used in place of the common terms, especially in specialist literature.^[1]

As aunt/uncle and niece/nephew are separated by one generation, they are an example of a second-degree relationship. They are 25% related by blood, unless related by marriage.

Lexicology[edit]

The word nephew is derived from the French word neveu which is derived from the Latin nepos.^[2] The term nepotism, meaning familial loyalty, is derived from this Latin term.^[3] Niece entered Middle English from the Old French word nece, which also derives from Latin nepotem.^[4] The word nibling, derived from sibling, is a neologism suggested by Samuel Martin in 1951 as a cover term for «nephew or niece»; it is not common outside of specialist literature.^[1] Sometimes in discussions involving analytic material or in abstract literature, terms such as male nibling and female nibling are preferred to describe nephews and nieces respectively.^[5] Terms such as nibling are also sometimes viewed as a gender-neutral alternative to terms which may be viewed as perpetuating the overgenderization of the English language.^[6]

These French-derived terms displaced the Middle English nyfte, nift, nifte, from Old English nift, from Proto-Germanic *niftiz (“niece”); and the Middle English neve, neave, from Old English nefa, from Proto-Germanic *nefô (“nephew”).^{[7][8][9][10]}

Culture[edit]

Traditionally, a nephew was the logical recipient of his uncle’s inheritance if the latter did not have a successor. A nephew might have more rights of inheritance than the uncle’s daughter.^[11][12]

In social environments that lacked a stable home or environments such as refugee situations, uncles and fathers would equally be assigned responsibility for their sons and nephews.^[13]

Among parents, some cultures have assigned equal status in their social status to daughters and nieces. This is, for instance, the case in Indian communities in Mauritius,^[14] and the Thai Nakhon Phanom Province, where the transfer of cultural knowledge such as weaving was distributed equally among daughters, nieces and nieces-in-law by the Tai So community,^[15] and some Garifuna people that would transmit languages to their nieces.^[16] In some proselytizing communities the term niece was informally extended to include non-related younger female community members as a form of endearment.^[17] Among some tribes in Manus Province of Papua New Guinea, women’s roles as sisters, daughters and nieces may have taken precedence over their marital status in social importance.^[18]

Additional terms[edit]

• A grandnephew or grandniece is the grandson or granddaughter of one’s sibling.^[19] Also called great-nephew / great-niece.^[20]
• A half-niece or half-nephew is the child of one’s half-sibling, related by 12.5%.^[21][22]

In some cultures and family traditions, it is common to refer to cousins with one or more removals to a newer generation using some form of the word niece or nephew. For more information see cousin.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). «Nephew» . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 384.
• Lancaster, F. M. (October 2005). «Types of Collateral Relationships — Uncle/Aunt Nephew/Niece». Genetic and Quantitative Aspects of Genealogy. Retrieved 25 June 2016.
• Dictionary.com, «nephew,» in Dictionary.com Unabridged. Source location: Random House, Inc. Available: Dictionary.com Is The World’s Favorite Online Dictionary. Retrieved: January 1, 2011