syssling

Swedish

Swedish kinship terms

Etymology

From Old Swedish systlinger, systlunger (“mother’s niece or nephew”), from syster (“sister”) + -linger. When the word kusin was borrowed from French, the words syssling and brylling underwent a semantic shift from ”cousin” to ”second cousin” and ”third cousin”, respectively.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /²sʏslɪŋ/

Noun

syssling c

1. second cousin (grandchild of a grandparent’s sibling)

   Synonyms: tremänning, nästkusin, småkusin, A-kusin

2. (Finland) third cousin (great-grandchild of a great-grandparent’s sibling)

   Synonyms: brylling, fyrmänning, B-kusin

3. (obsolete) niece
4. (obsolete) the mother's niece, cousin on the mother's side

Declension

Declension of syssling

		nominative	genitive
singular	indefinite	syssling	sysslings
	definite	sysslingen	sysslingens
plural	indefinite	sysslingar	sysslingars
	definite	sysslingarna	sysslingarnas

References

• “syssling”, in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)
• “syssling”, in Svenska Akademiens ordbok [Dictionary of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)
• syssling in Finlandssvensk ordbok
• “I släkten flödar den språkliga kreativiteten”, in Språkbruk‎^[1], Institute for the Languages of Finland, 2018