KIN

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does kin mean? 

• KIN (noun)
  The noun KIN has 2 senses:

1. a person having kinship with another or others

2. group of people related by blood or marriage

  Familiarity information: KIN used as a noun is rare.

• KIN (adjective)
  The adjective KIN has 1 sense:

1. related by blood

  Familiarity information: KIN used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• KIN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person having kinship with another or others

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

family; kin; kinsperson

Context example:

he's family

Hypernyms ("kin" is a kind of...):

relation; relative (a person related by blood or marriage)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "kin"):

affine ((anthropology) kin by marriage)

Derivation:

kin (related by blood)

kinship ((anthropology) relatedness or connection by blood or marriage or adoption)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Group of people related by blood or marriage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

clan; kin; kin group; kindred; kinship group; tribe

Hypernyms ("kin" is a kind of...):

social group (people sharing some social relation)

Meronyms (members of "kin"):

relation; relative (a person related by blood or marriage)

clan member; clansman; clanswoman (a member of a clan)

tribesman (someone who lives in a tribe)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "kin"):

mishpachah; mishpocha ((Yiddish) the entire family network of relatives by blood or marriage (and sometimes close friends))

family; family unit (primary social group; parents and children)

folks (your parents)

family tree; genealogy (successive generations of kin)

totem (a clan or tribe identified by their kinship to a common totemic object)

Tribes of Israel; Twelve Tribes of Israel (twelve kin groups of ancient Israel each traditionally descended from one of the twelve sons of Jacob)

Derivation:

kin (related by blood)

kinship ((anthropology) relatedness or connection by blood or marriage or adoption)

• KIN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Related by blood

Synonyms:

akin; blood-related; cognate; consanguine; consanguineal; consanguineous; kin

Similar:

related (connected by kinship, common origin, or marriage)

Derivation:

kin (group of people related by blood or marriage)

kin (a person having kinship with another or others)

 Context examples 

You have known my father and my kin: is not my family one of good standing and repute?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It will be a bright day for Sir Lothian Hume when they can prove him dead, for he is next of kin, and till then he can touch neither title nor estate.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She was next of kin, no doubt, and you were aware that the old fellow would make no will.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His allegiance to man seemed somehow a law of his being greater than the love of liberty, of kind and kin.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

T. rhadinus and its kin are the earliest known members of the bird branch of the archosaurs.

(Scientists discover fossil of dinosaur ancestor with surprising croc-like appearance, NSF)

The third house is also linked to close kin—your sister, brother, or cousin—so one of these individuals will likely play an important role in your life this month, too.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

"You kin fight in the middle, under the electric light, an' whichever way the bulls come in we kin sneak the other way."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either to one's self or one's kin.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

While they snugly repair to their own end of the house, she is formally conducted by Dorothy, the ancient housekeeper, up a different staircase, and along many gloomy passages, into an apartment never used since some cousin or kin died in it about twenty years before.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)