means The practice of giving jobs, advantages, or favors to relatives and friends rather than choosing people on the basis of their actual abilities.

from From Italian nepotismo, built on nipote, "nephew" (ultimately from Latin nepos, "nephew" or "grandson"). The word carries a very specific scandal: it points to the popes and high clergy who, sworn to celibacy and thus officially childless, advanced their "nephews" — a word that often politely meant their illegitimate sons — to lucrative church offices. By the 17th century the term had spread from the Vatican into general use for any boss who treats kinship as a qualification.