The root behind kinship also produced king, kind, gene, gentle, and genocide — all from PIE *ǵenh₁- (to beget), making birth the hidden thread connecting family, royalty, and biology.
The state of being related by blood, marriage, or adoption; a feeling of close connection or affinity between people.
From kin (from Old English cynn, meaning family, race, kind, from Proto-Germanic *kunją, from PIE *ǵenh₁-, to beget, to give birth) + -ship (a suffix forming nouns denoting state or condition, from Old English -scipe). Kinship literally means the state of being of the same kind or birth. Key roots: *ǵenh₁- (Proto-Indo-European: "to beget, to give birth").
The PIE root *ǵenh₁- (to beget) that gives us kinship is one of the most productive in any language. From it descend: kin, kind, kindred, and king (a leader of the kin-group) in Germanic; genus, gene, genetic, generate, genesis, gentle, genuine, and genial in Latin; and genealogy, gonad, and genocide in Greek. The word kinship is relatively modern (1764), but the concept it names — and the root that underlies it — reaches