cousinliness

English

Etymology

From cousinly ‎ -ness.

Noun

cousinliness (uncountable)

1. The quality of being cousinly.
   • [1871], [Mary,] Countess von Bothmer, Cruel as the Grave, volume II, London: Henry S. King & Co., page 44:

     Unkindness would have implied intimacy, or, at any rate, cousinliness, whereas, but for his presence in her boudoir, and his familiar tone with her mother, a stranger might have supposed the two young people to be the merest casual acquaintances.

   • 1897 May 4, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, edited by Mary A. Hill, A Journey from Within: The Love Letters of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1897-1900, Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses, published 1995, →ISBN, page 195:

     Now perhaps you will understand why, feeling this exuberance of joy and loving kindness as I mostly do, and your defenceless head having popped up within my range of late, I shower so much affection on you—quite passing the mild limits of cousinliness.

   • 2010, Anton Burge, Portraying Elizabeth: Elizabeth I on Stage and Screen, and the Actresses Who Have Played Her, Matador, Troubador Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 36:

     There was no way that Elizabeth, with her own particular nature, could have indulged in feelings of sisterliness or cousinliness towards Mary, as she had to defend herself: it was ultimately survival.