the.com/cousin
the genetic wildcard who's family enough to mock, distant enough to forgive.
means A relative descended from a common ancestor but not your sibling — typically the child of your aunt or uncle, or more loosely anyone in the wider branches of the family tree.
from From Old French 'cosin,' which came from Latin 'consobrinus' — literally 'child of a mother's sister' (con-, 'together,' plus 'sobrinus,' relating to a maternal aunt). Over the centuries the word loosened its grip on that precise relationship and spread to cover the whole sprawling thicket of distant kin, until even monarchs were calling each other 'cousin' as a courtly nicety.
- shared blood
- First cousins share about 12.5% of DNA.
- royal hazard
- Many monarchs married cousins, concentrating heirs and hemophilia alike.
- global default
- Most marriages in human history were between cousins.
- word origin
- From Latin consobrinus, meaning mother's sister's child.
- legal patchwork
- Cousin marriage is legal in some US states, banned in others.