nephew
Pluralnephews
- 1The son of one's brother or sister, or of a sibling's husband or wife.
My nephew is studying engineering at a college upstate.
At the wedding, both of her nephews served as ushers.
Note
Kinship terminology can split the relation by the parent's side: a brother's son is a fraternal nephew, a sister's son a sororal nephew. The word came into English through Old French neveu from Latin nepos, which meant both "nephew" and "grandson." That double meaning lingers in the archaic "grandson" use. The same Latin word lies behind French neveu and Italian nipote, and the older English form neve is now obsolete.
- 2The son of one's cousin, or of a cousin's husband or wife.
She introduced her cousin's son as her nephew at the family reunion.
His nephews on his cousin's side gathered for the holidays.
- 3The son of one's own son or daughter; a grandson.
The old lord named his nephew, his son's firstborn, as his heir.
Hir father many a time and oft would say my daughter deere, Of Nephewes thou my debtour art, their Graundsires heart to chéere.
1567, Ovid, “The First Booke”Similargrandson
Note
An old use that keeps the Latin "grandson" meaning traced under the sibling's-son sense. In Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid, a father tells his daughter she owes him "Nephewes" to cheer their grandsire's heart. He means grandsons. You will meet this meaning only in older texts. In your own writing, use grandson, because a modern reader will hear nephew as a sibling's son.
Use it in a sentence
Write your own sentence with nephew, and AI will tell you whether it fits and which meaning you used.
Origin
'Nephew' comes from Middle English 'nevew', from Old French 'neveu', from Latin 'nepos' (nephew, grandson), and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European '*népōts' (grandchild, sister's son). It replaced the older native English word 'neve'. The '-ph-' spelling was reintroduced from the 15th century to match Latin 'nepos', which later led to the /f/ pronunciation.