Swedish

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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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

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

References

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