noun
kin
kihn
noun
1
One's relatives, considered together as a group.
"She travelled home to spend the holidays with her kin."
"All his kin gathered for the funeral."
adj
1
Related by blood or marriage.
"They are kin through their grandmothers, who were sisters."
How to Use Kin
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishYour relatives or family, taken as a whole — used in slightly formal or old-fashioned contexts.
Easily confused with
Common pairings
next of kin
kith and kin
close kin
Word Forms
kinned past tense, kins plural, kin plural, kins plural, kin plural, kins singular
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Etymology
From Old English cynn, "kind, sort, family," from a very old Germanic root also behind "kind" and, further back, related to Latin genus.