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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

skinship en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • /ˈskɪnʃɪp/
  • (US) audio

Etymology

Phono-semantic matching of Japanese スキンシップ (sukinshippu), itself a wasei eigo (和製英語; pseudo-anglicism) derived from English skin + -ship, or as a blend from English skin + kinship. It is first recorded in English in 1966 according to the OED. In Japanese, this form was also observed in the Latin script as early as 1955.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) Bonding through physical (touch, skin-to-skin) contact; particularly between family members, relatives and loved ones.
    • He explained that sufficient skinship in child-rearing prevents the occurrence of psychosis in Japan. 1966, Hisako Kokubu, “Psychosis”, in Child-rearing practices and cultural issues in Japanese personality development, Michigan State University, Cultural Personality of the Japanese People (section IV), page 33:
    • However, there were times that folks needed that skinship to feel hearten'd and Dan often felt when others had that need. 2015, LT Wolf, The World King (fiction), →ISBN:
    • In Mexico, interdependence among people in emphasized and expressed through cosleeping and "skinship." … A similar type of "skinship" also exists throughout Mexico—all one had to do is look at the way people walk or sit together. … women are always patting touching ... 1994, Nicole Landry Sault, Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations, Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 311:
  2. (uncountable) Spending time together naked for social bonding.
    • This relationship of parents to children is especially enhanced by bathing together—commonly known as skinship (sukinshippu). Other groups, from businessmen or to neighboring housewives to hikers and classmates, often seek to increase the strength of a relationship by engaging in hadaka no tsukiai at a sentō, health center, or onsen. 1992, Scott Clark, “The Japanese Bath: Extraordinarily Ordinary”, in Joseph Jay Tobin, editor, Re-made in Japan: Everyday Life and Consumer Taste in a Changing Society (social science), Yale University Press, published 1992, page 102:

Translations (3)

ko 스킨십 (bonding through physical contact) · ja スキンシップ (bonding through physical contact) · th สกินชิพ (bonding through physical contact)

wikipedia: Daijirin