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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

nephew.

A son of one's sibling, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law; either a son of one's brother (fraternal nephew) or a son of one's sister (sororal nephew).

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈnɛf.ju//ˈnɛv.ju/Received-Pronunciation, dated
  1. A son of one's sibling, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law; either a son of one's brother (fraternal nephew) or a son of one's sister (sororal nephew).

  2. A son of one's cousin or cousin-in-law

  3. A son of one's child.

    archaic
  4. Descendant

Where this word comes from

From Middle English nevew, neveu (“nephew, grandson”), from Old French neveu, from Latin nepos, nepōtem, from Proto-Italic *nepōts (“nephew, grandson”), whence also French neveu, Italian nipote. Displaced or absorbed the inherited English neve (“nephew, grandson, male cousin”), from Middle English neve, from Old English nefa, from Proto-West Germanic *nefō, from Proto-Germanic *nefô (“nephew, grandson”), whence Dutch neef, German Neffe. All ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *népōts (“grandchild, sister's son”). Cognate with Serbo-Croatian nećak, Irish nia, Persian نوه (nave). Doublet of neve. Spelt with -ph- by readaptation to Latin nepos since the 15th century, which later triggered the spelling pronunciation with /f/.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.