What does "nibling" mean?

Used especially as a gender-neutral term: the child of one's sibling or sibling-in-law; one's nephew or niece.

What is a synonym for "nibling"?

Common synonyms include: nephling, nephling, niefling.

//ˈnɪblɪŋ// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Used especially as a gender-neutral term: the child of one's sibling or sibling-in-law; one's nephew or niece. in-plural, often
"Aunts and uncles are concerned with the education of their niblings and may play a minor role in the ultimate arrangement of a marriage for the nibling."

"Her nibling lives in the Netherlands."

Blend of nephew or niece + sibling, coined by the American linguist Samuel Elmo Martin (1924–2009) in 1951.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.