first cousin
"first-cousin" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“first cousin” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A child of a parent's sibling; a nephew or niece of a parent; a child of one's uncle or aunt.
Corpus desk
Index EN-first-cousin · first cousin · English
first cousin · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "F" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | first cousin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “first cousin” in English
Rare enough to double-check
first cousin is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for first cousin in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is first cousin, spelled F-I-R-S-T- -C-O-U-S-I-N.
Definition
- 1A child of a parent's sibling; a nephew or niece of a parent; a child of one's uncle or aunt.
- 2A relative who has with the other person only two grandparents or one grandparent (maternal or paternal) in common, but parents are different.
- 3Anything closely related.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how first cousin appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…] that coarseness which is first cousin to sin.
[H]e was afraid the Mexicans, who were, he claimed, first cousin to the spigotties, would catch us off our guard and give us the same treatment.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.