# nibling
## English
### Etymology

Blend of nephew or niece +‎ sibling, coined by the American linguist Samuel Elmo Martin (1924–2009) in 1951.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /ˈnɪblɪŋ/, enPR: nĭbʹlĭng
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Audio (General American):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪblɪŋ
* Homophone: nibbling (one pronunciation)
* Hyphenation: nib‧ling

### Noun

nibling (plural niblings)
* (originally chiefly anthropology, often in the plural) Used especially as a gender-neutral term: the child of one's sibling or sibling-in-law; one's nephew or niece. [from 1951]
    Synonyms: nephling, niefling
    Hyponyms: nephew, niece
    Coordinate terms: pibling, auncle
** 1967, Ben J. Wallace, Gaddang Agriculture: The Focus of Ecological and Cultural Change (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation), Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin, →OCLC:Aunts and uncles are concerned with the education of their niblings and may play a minor role in the ultimate arrangement of a marriage for the nibling.
** 1971, Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society, volume 3, Urbana, Ill.: Steward Anthropological Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 144:Very recently I heard an informant respond with cousin to my question about the “child of nibling” position.
** 1974, Roger W. Shuy, Charles-James N. Bailey, editors, Towards Tomorrow’s Linguistics, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, →ISBN, page 125:In the following line we find Q$^1$P$^2$; that is, child of a parent of a parent; this is the relation that nuncles (aunts or uncles) bear to niblings (nieces or nephews).
** 1988, Jay Miller, “Viola Edmundson Garfield”, in Ute Gacs, Aisha Khan, Jerrie McIntyre, Ruth Weinberg, editors, Women Anthropologists: Selected Biographies, Illini Books edition, Urbana, Chicago, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, published 1989, →ISBN, page 112:She [Viola Edmundson Garfield] was close to her family, particularly her younger “siblings and niblings.”
** 1998 May, Daniel J. Kruger, “Male Relatives Benefit More from Kin Selecting Tendencies Enhancing Social Status”, in Daniel J. Kruger, PhD, University of Michigan‎, archived from the original on 17 June 2019:Kin selection was strongest for choices between sibling and friend, decreasing across sibling vs. nibling, nibling vs. friend, and nibling vs. cousin, [...]
** 1999, Jay Miller, “Body”, in Lushootseed Culture and the Shamanic Odyssey: An Anchored Radiance, Lincoln, Neb., London: University of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 127:Most distinctive of the system, therefore, were the two terms for parental siblings and for niblings, which occurred only among the Salish and neighboring Southern Nootkans.
** 2005, Sean M. Theriault, The Power of the People: Congressional Competition, Public Attention, and Voter Retribution (Parliaments and Legislatures), Columbus, Oh.: Ohio State University Press, →ISBN, page x:But, it is my niblings who taught me how to love.
** 2005 February, N. J. Enfield, “The Body as a Cognitive Artifact in Kinship Representations: Hand Gesture Diagrams by Speakers of Lao”, in Current Anthropology, volume 46, number 1, Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 51–81; quoted in N. J. Enfield, “Diagramming”, in The Anatomy of Meaning: Speech, Gesture, and Composite Utterances (Language, Culture, and Cognition; 8), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 2009, →ISBN, part II (Illustrative Components of Moves), page 161:Cousins are informally referred to by the same terms used for siblings, but officially one has an aunt/uncle-nibling relationship with one's cousins.

#### Translations
### References

* ↑ Harold C[olyer] Conklin (1964) “Ethnogenealogical Method”, in Ward H[unt] Goodenough, editor, Explorations in Cultural Anthropology: Essays in Honor of George Peter Murdock, New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Book Co., →OCLC, page 35.

### Further reading

* niece and nephew on Wikipedia.Wikipedia