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PlainSpell

kin

/kɪn/noun, adjective, verb

kin is spelled K-I-N: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 4.5 times per million words in written English, the 12,045th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, kin means “Race; family; breed; kind” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of kin is kins.

How many letters and syllables are in kin?

Letters3: K-I-N
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing4.5 times per million words; the 12,045th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is kin?

Kin appears 4.5 times per million words in written English, the 12,045th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce kin?

  • /kɪn/
  • [k̟ʰɪn]

Kin has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-kin.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with kin

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

ken vs kin0 B

Also written: k'in, qin.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with kin?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as kin.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: ink.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of kin

  • kins plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • kinning participle, present
  • kinned participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does kin mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    Race; family; breed; kind.

    the starfish and its kin the sea urchin

  2. 2

    Persons of the same race or family; kindred.

  3. 3

    One or more relatives, such as siblings or cousins, taken collectively.

  4. 4

    Relationship; same-bloodedness or affinity; near connection or alliance, as of those having common descent.

  5. 5

    slangA fictional or non-fictional being whom one spiritually connects to.

  6. 6

    slangSomeone who identifies as a certain fictional character.

  7. 7

    Alternative form of qin (“Chinese string instrument”).

  8. 8

    Alternative form of k'in.

  9. 9

    colloquialClipping of kinesiology.

adjective

  1. 1

    Related by blood or marriage, akin. (It is more common to form sentences using the noun instead.)

    It turns out my back-fence neighbor is kin to one of my co-workers.

verb

  1. 1

    slangTo identify with; as in spiritually connect to a fictional or non-fictional being.

  2. 2

    Pronunciation spelling of can.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Kin in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchproches, parenté (relatives collectively), apparenté (related by blood or marriage)
GermanVerwandtschaft, Verwandte (relatives collectively)
Portugueseparentes, parentagem (relatives collectively), aparentado (related by blood or marriage)
Spanishparentaje (relatives collectively)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does kin come from?

From Middle English kyn, from Old English cynn (“kind, sort, rank”), from Proto-West Germanic *kuni, from Proto-Germanic *kunją (“race, generation, descent”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵn̥h₁yom, from *ǵenh₁- (“to produce”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after kin