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In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject's sibling or sibling-in-law. The converse relationship, the relationship from the niece or nephew's perspective, is that of an aunt or uncle. A niece is female and a nephew is male. The term nibling has been used in place of the common, gender-specific terms in some specialist literature.^[1]

As aunt/uncle and niece/nephew are separated by two generations they are an example of second-degree relationship and are 25% related if related by blood.

Lexicology

The word nephew is derived from the French word neveu which is derived from the Latin nepotem.^[2] The term nepotism, meaning familial loyalty, is derived from this Latin term.^[3] Niece entered Middle English from the Old French word nece, which also derives from Latin nepotem.^[4] The word nibling is a neologism suggested by Samuel Martin in 1951 as a cover term for "nephew or niece"; it is not common outside of specialist literature.^[1] Sometimes in discussions involving analytic material or in abstract literature, terms such as male nibling and female nibling are preferred to describe nephews and nieces respectively.^[5] Terms such as nibling are also sometimes viewed as a gender-neutral alternative to terms which may be viewed as perpetuating the overgenderization of the English language.^[6]

These French-derived terms displaced the Middle English nyfte, nift, nifte, from Old English nift, from Proto-Germanic *niftiz (“niece”); and the Middle English neve, neave, from Old English nefa, from Proto-Germanic *nefô (“nephew”).^{[7][8][9][10]}

Culture

Traditionally, a nephew was the logical recipient of his uncle's inheritance if the latter did not have a successor. A nephew might have more rights of inheritance than the uncle's daughter.^[11][12]

In social environments that lacked a stable home or environments such as refugee situations, uncles and fathers would equally be assigned responsibility for their sons and nephews.^[13]

Among parents, some cultures have assigned equal status in their social status to daughters and nieces. This is, for instance, the case in Indian communities in Mauritius,^[14] and the Thai Nakhon Phanom Province, where the transfer of cultural knowledge such as weaving was distributed equally among daughters, nieces and nieces-in-law by the Tai So community,^[15] and some Garifuna people that would transmit languages to their nieces.^[16] In some proselytizing communities the term niece was informally extended to include non-related younger female community members as a form of endearment.^[17] Among some tribes in Manus Province of Papua New Guinea, women's roles as sisters, daughters and nieces may have taken precedence over their marital status in social importance.^[18]

Additional terms

• A grandnephew or grandniece is the grandson or granddaughter of one's sibling.^[19] Also called great-nephew / great-niece.^[20]
• A half-niece or half-nephew is the child of one's half-sibling, related by 12.5%.^[21][22]

In some cultures and family traditions, it is common to refer to cousins with one or more removals to a newer generation using some form of the word niece or nephew. For more information see cousin.