syssling
Swedish
[edit]Etymology
[edit]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
[edit]Noun
[edit]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
[edit]| nominative | genitive | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| singular | indefinite | syssling | sysslings |
| definite | sysslingen | sysslingens | |
| plural | indefinite | sysslingar | sysslingars |
| definite | sysslingarna | sysslingarnas |
References
[edit]- syssling in Svensk ordbok (SO)
- syssling in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
- syssling in Finlandssvensk ordbok
- “I släkten flödar den språkliga kreativiteten”, in Språkbruk[1], Institute for the Languages of Finland, 2018