cousinliness

noun

cousinliness

noun

Etymology From cousinly + -ness.

1

The quality of being cousinly.

  • Unkindness would have implied intimacy, or, at any rate, cousinliness, whereas, but for his presence in her boudoir, and his familiar tone with her mother, a stranger might have supposed the two young people to be the merest casual acquaintances.[1871], [Mary,] Countess von Bothmer, Cruel as the Grave, volume II, London: Henry S. King & Co., page 44:
  • Now perhaps you will understand why, feeling this exuberance of joy and loving kindness as I mostly do, and your defenceless head having popped up within my range of late, I shower so much affection on you—quite passing the mild limits of cousinliness.1897 May 4, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, edited by Mary A. Hill, A Journey from Within: The Love Letters of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1897-1900, Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses, published 1995, →ISBN, page 195:
1 more example
  • There was no way that Elizabeth, with her own particular nature, could have indulged in feelings of sisterliness or cousinliness towards Mary, as she had to defend herself: it was ultimately survival.2010, Anton Burge, Portraying Elizabeth: Elizabeth I on Stage and Screen, and the Actresses Who Have Played Her, Matador, Troubador Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 36:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.