English

Noun

cousinship ‎(plural cousinships)

1. the state of being cousins, the relationship of cousins
   • 1847, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre:

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

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles:

     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.

   • 1921, George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah:

     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.

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

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

Synonyms

• cousinhood