sibling
Americannoun
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siblings
plural
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a brother or sister.
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Anthropology. a comember of a sib, a unilateral descent group thought to share kinship through a common ancestor.
adjective
noun
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a person's brother or sister
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( as modifier )
sibling rivalry
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any fellow member of a sib
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of sibling
before 1000; late Middle English: relative, Old English; see sib, -ling 1
Explanation
A sibling is your brother or sister. It's that simple. The word sibling once meant anyone who is related to you, but now it's reserved for children of the same parent or parents. It is a word that was once out of use but then brought back into English in the early 1900s as a useful word in anthropology. If you and your brother fight all of the time, your parents might call it sibling rivalry. You might just call him annoying and run from the room.
Vocabulary lists containing sibling
It's All in the Family
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Unit 3: Compelling Evidence
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Unit 2: Pivotal Words and Phrases
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The researchers also used sibling comparisons to investigate whether the findings might instead be explained by characteristics shared within families.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026
In the meantime, there’s a lot of unwieldy comic commotion involving a missing corpse, a tweaking, naked Dwight and enough insipid TV sibling bickering to clog the airwaves for a decade.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
"Please can you find my sibling," read one comment.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
"The National Intelligence Service currently assesses that Kim Ju Ae is being groomed as the successor and understands she has a younger sibling of unknown gender," the agency said, reaffirming its conclusion on succession.
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
So that’s how Grace ended up drafting yet another email to a sibling she had never met.
From "Far from the Tree" by Robin Benway
Kormylo described Petrov as a "very pleasant young man" who had arrived in Scotland with his mother and three younger siblings - one brother and two sisters.
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
Often a parent hears a child speaking English with friends or siblings and assumes the child is already proficient and has exited the program, Villarreal said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026
Parton didn’t have children, and her husband died in 2025, but she had 11 siblings and multitudes of nieces and nephews.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 28, 2026
Her three siblings have already emigrated, and she is considering shutting down her small delicatessen to follow them abroad.
From Barron's ● Sep. 26, 2026
He was probably really good at it, like dealing with all his siblings and being stuck in the middle.
From "The Marvellers" by Dhonielle Clayton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
