kin
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Persons of the same race or family.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kinIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɪn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
collectively
Persons of the same race or family; kindred.
collectively
Race; family; breed; kind.
One or more relatives, such as siblings or cousins, taken collectively.
Relationship; same-bloodedness or affinity; near connection or alliance, as of those having common descent.
A day, in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.
The capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), in the western part of the country on the Congo River.
verb
Pronunciation spelling of can.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (collectively) Persons of the same race or family; kindred.
Used this way, kin is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.