syssling
Swedish
Etymology
From Old Swedish systlinger, systlunger (“mother’s niece or nephew”), from syster (“sister”) + -linger. When the word kusin was borrowed from French, the words syssling and brylling underwent a semantic shift from ”cousin” to ”second cousin” and ”third cousin”, respectively.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /²sʏslɪŋ/
Noun
syssling c
- second cousin (grandchild of a grandparent’s sibling)
- Synonyms: tremänning, nästkusin, småkusin, A-kusin
- (Finland) third cousin (great-grandchild of a great-grandparent’s sibling)
- Synonyms: brylling, fyrmänning, B-kusin
- (obsolete) niece
- (obsolete) the mother's niece, cousin on the mother's side
Declension
| Declension of syssling | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |||
| Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
| Nominative | syssling | sysslingen | sysslingar | sysslingarna |
| Genitive | sysslings | sysslingens | sysslingars | sysslingarnas |
References
- syssling in Svensk ordbok (SO)
- syssling in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
- syssling in Finlandssvensk ordbok
- “I släkten flödar den språkliga kreativiteten”, in Språkbruk, Institute for the Languages of Finland, 2018