first cousin

American  

noun

first cousins plural

1. cousin.

2. anything or anyone closely related to or resembling another.

   The film producer tried not to make the movie a first cousin to his last hit.

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first cousin Idioms  

1. A close relation or resemblance to someone or something, as in This new machine is a first cousin to the previous model. The figurative use of cousin, which literally means “the child of one's aunt or uncle,” dates from the 1300s.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• first cousins
  plural

Etymology

Origin of first cousin

First recorded in 1965–70

Example Sentences

Michelle and Lavinia met up with a woman called Olivine, who Michelle believed was a new first cousin to both her and her twin.

From BBC • May 2, 2026

If the distinguished Soviet literary scholar Olga Freidenberg is known at all in the West, it is for her 45-year correspondence with her beloved first cousin, the novelist and poet Boris Pasternak.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

It wasn’t the first time that Huang had snubbed Su, who is also his first cousin, once removed.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 24, 2026

He is a first cousin, three times removed, of Sir Winston Churchill and a distant relative of the late Princess Diana through the Spencer family.

From BBC • Dec. 17, 2025

Sourmelina Zizmo, nee Papadiamandopoulos, was my grandparents’ cousin and hence my first cousin twice removed.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides