Dictionary

forty-second cousin en · NOUN

Pronunciation

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Meanings

1. (humorous) Any very distant relative.
   • "Is he a relation of ours, too, Cousin Jimmy?" "Forty-second cousin. Way back he had a cousin of Mary Shipley's for a great-something. […] 1923, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “Chapter 7”, in Emily of New Moon:
   • So Jessie's my second cousin once removed or forty-second cousin or something. Anyway, we're kind-of related. 2019, Sue Lawrence, Down to the Sea:
   • And also my step-sister, my niece, my fourth cousin, my thirty-third cousin, my forty-second cousin, my great-aunt, my grandmother, my widowed sister-in-law-and next week she will be my wife. 1879, Mark Twain, The Great Revolution in Pitcairn:

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