skinship
/ˈskɪnʃɪp/noun
skinship is spelled S-K-I-N-S-H-I-P: 8 letters. It appears about once in every 34 million words in written English, the 178,202nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, skinship means “Bonding through physical (touch, skin-to-skin) contact; particularly between family members, relatives and loved ones” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in skinship?
| Letters | 8: S-K-I-N-S-H-I-P |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 34 million words; the 178,202nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is skinship?
Skinship appears about once in every 34 million words in written English, the 178,202nd 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 skinship?
- /ˈskɪnʃɪp/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-skinship.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What does skinship mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Bonding through physical (touch, skin-to-skin) contact; particularly between family members, relatives and loved ones.
- 2
Spending time together naked for social bonding.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does skinship come from?
Phono-semantic matching of Japanese スキンシップ (sukinshippu), itself a wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from English skin + -ship, or as a blend from English skin + kinship. It is first recorded in English in 1966 according to the OED. In Japanese, this form was also observed in the Latin script as early as 1955.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).