Nephew
name, noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 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 your brother or sister wordnet
- 3 A son of one's cousin or cousin-in-law
- 4 A son of one's child. archaic
"Hir father many a time and oft would say my daughter deere, Of Nephewes thou my debtour art, their Graundsires heart to chéere."
- 1 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"My nephew was accustomed to sitting up late."
Etymology
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). Spelt with -ph- by readaptation to Latin nepos since the 15th century, which later triggered the spelling pronunciation with /f/.
English surname, from the noun nephew.
Related phrases
More for "nephew"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.