Skinship
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Bonding through physical (touch, skin-to-skin) contact; particularly between family members, relatives and loved ones. South-Korea, uncountable
"In Mexico, interdependence among people in emphasized and expressed through cosleeping and "skinship." … A similar type of "skinship" also exists throughout Mexico—all one had to do is look at the way people walk or sit together. … women are always patting touching ..."
- 2 Spending time together naked for social bonding. uncountable
"This relationship of parents to children is especially enhanced by bathing together—commonly known as skinship (sukinshippu). Other groups, from businessmen or to neighboring housewives to hikers and classmates, often seek to increase the strength of a relationship by engaging in hadaka no tsukiai at a sentō, health center, or onsen."
Example
More examples"In Mexico, interdependence among people in emphasized and expressed through cosleeping and "skinship." … A similar type of "skinship" also exists throughout Mexico—all one had to do is look at the way people walk or sit together. … women are always patting touching ..."
Etymology
Blend of skin + kinship; can also be formulated as skin + -ship. Recorded as early as 1966 by the OED; probably a calque of Japanese スキンシップ (sukinshippu), itself a pseudo-anglicism recorded to date back to at least 1955, or Korean 스킨십 (seukinsip) (1971 or older). In Japanese, this form was also observed in the Latin script as early as 1955.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.