cousins

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of cousin.

   Her cousins traveled from three different states for the wedding.

   The two cousins hadn't seen each other since childhood.

   Note

   A regular plural with a use of its own. Cousins is the usual form when a whole people or nation is felt to be kin to another, the same national kinship that the intelligence-services slang plays on. With an ordinal it counts degrees: first cousins, second cousins. Without one, it normally means first cousins, the children of an aunt or uncle.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of cousin.

   Note

   Most of the verb is rare: addressing someone as "cousin," or claiming them as kin. The livelier uses are informal, regional American and intransitive. Someone who cousins goes visiting relatives or keeps close company, so no object is needed. The spelling matches the plural noun, and the sentence settles which is which: a singular subject before it marks the verb.

3. 3
   nounslangplural

   The American intelligence agencies from a British point of view, or the British intelligence agencies from an American point of view.

   London passed the intercepts to the cousins before the operation went ahead.

   The cousins shared satellite imagery with British agents throughout the crisis.

   Note

   This is spy-world slang that John le Carré popularized. In his 1977 novel, officers weigh "the shotgun marriage with the Cousins." The word is plural-only, since no single agency is ever "a cousin." It usually takes the definite article and is often capitalized. It belongs to insider talk and to fiction about intelligence work. Outside those settings it reads as knowing jargon rather than plain description.

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