cousinliness

Noun

cousinliness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being cousinly.
   • Unkindness would have implied intimacy, or, at any rate, cousinliness, whereas, but for his presence in her boudoir, and his familiar tone with her mother, a stranger might have supposed the two young people to be the merest casual acquaintances.[1871], [Mary,] Countess von Bothmer, Cruel as the Grave, volume II, London: Henry S. King & Co., page 44
   • Now perhaps you will understand why, feeling this exuberance of joy and loving kindness as I mostly do, and your defenceless head having popped up within my range of late, I shower so much affection on you—quite passing the mild limits of cousinliness.1897 May 4, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, edited by Mary A. Hill, A Journey from Within: The Love Letters of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1897-1900, Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press; London...