kin
/kɪn/
kin noun: race; family; breed; kind. Also the alternative form of qin.
Noun (1)
kin (countable and uncountable, plural kins or kin)
- Race; family; breed; kind.
- the starfish and its kin the sea urchin
- Persons of the same race or family; kindred.
- You are of kin, and so must be a friend to their persons.c. 1620, Francis Bacon, letter of advice to Sir George Villiers
- Based on the number of teeth ammonites had—nine—it's believed that their closest living kin are octopuses.2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, page 84
- One or more relatives, such as siblings or cousins, taken collectively.
- Among those who derive information related to work from personal contacts, nonkins, rather than kins, constitute the most important sources even for women.2016, Saraswati Raju, Santosh Jatrana, Women Workers in Urban India, page 280
- Relationship; same-bloodedness or affinity; near connection or alliance, as of those having common descent.
- Such sensations, however, were too near a kin to resentment to be long guiding Fanny's soliloquies.1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XIII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 248
Adjective
kin (not comparable)
- Related by blood or marriage, akin. (It is more common to form sentences using the noun instead.)
- It turns out my back-fence neighbor is kin to one of my co-workers.
- ... and our feeling together had made us forget what-ever there'd been between us to forget about. And I ain't ever in my life felt so kin to folks. I felt kinner than I knew I was. That night, tired as I was, I walked[…]1914, Zona Gale, Neighborhood Stories, page 155
Verb
kin (third-person singular simple present kins, present participle kinning, simple past and past participle kinned)
- To identify with; as in spiritually connect to a fictional or non-fictional being.
Noun (2)
kin (plural kins or kin)
- A fictional or non-fictional being whom one spiritually connects to.
- Someone who identifies as a certain fictional character.
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Kin
Kin
- Alternative form of Jin.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Kin
Kin
- Clipping of Kinshasa.
Also used as
kin is also the alternative form of qin.
kin is also the alternative form of k'in.
kin is also the pronunciation spelling of can.
kin is also the clipping of kinesiology.
kin meaning in Tamil, Tagalog and Arabic
kin in Tamil
- related by blood or marriage
- கேளிர் kēḷir
kin in Tagalog
- relatives collectively
- hinlog
- related by blood or marriage
- karugo, kadugo
kin in Arabic
- relatives collectively
- أَهْل ʔahl, أَقَارِب ʔaqārib
Examples of kin in a sentence
- According to anthropology, there are six basic patterns of kinship terminology or kin naming systems.
- Most Machiguenga lack personal names. Members of the same tribe are individuated using kin terminology.
- I feel a fierce loyalty to my kin.
Forms of kin
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | kins |
| plural | kin |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | kins |
| present participle | kinning |
| past participle | kinned |
| past | kinned |
Origin of kin
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”).
Borrowed from Mandarin 琴 (qín), from a non-palatal dialect akin to Peking; or less likely, from Japanese 琴 (kin).
Clipping of fictionkin.
Words formed from kin
Phrases with kin
Words that rhyme with kin
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- chin
- Flynn
- bin
- Quinn
- sin
- tin
- Bryn
- corinne
- inn
- din
- Finn
- grin
- lin
- linn
- unpin
- Benin
- min
- shin
- violin
- wherein
- within
- akin
- been
- begin
- brin
- chin-chin
- hin
- lyn
- mandolin
- whin
- zoom in
- agin
- agrin
- Arabian jasmine
- blin
- djinn
- Douyin
- edge in
- gimme some skin
- glyn
- herein
- jinn
- Karin
- kissing kin
- lecithin
- Nguyen
- nin
Questions about kin
- What does kin mean?
- Kin means race; family; breed; kind.
- What is kin in Tamil?
- Kin in Tamil is கேளிர் (kēḷir). See Kin meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is kin?
- Kin can be a noun, an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce kin?
- Kin is pronounced /kɪn/.
- What is the plural of kin?
- The plural of kin is kins.
Words near kin in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: kin (page history and authors); Kin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-kin.ogg.
Cite this entry: “kin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.