Cousin
A cousin is a relative who is the child of a parent's sibling; this is more specifically referred to as a first cousin. A parent of a first cousin is an aunt or uncle.
More generally, in the kinship system used in the English-speaking world, cousins are in a type of relationship in which the two cousins are two or more generations away from their most recent common ancestor. In this usage, "degrees" and "removals" are used to specify the relationship more precisely.
"Degree" (such as "first cousin", "second cousin", etc.) measures how distant the relationship is from the most recent common ancestor(s), starting with one for first cousins and increasing with every subsequent generation.
If the cousins do not come from the same generation, "removal" expresses the difference in generations between the two cousins. When removal is not specified, no removal is assumed.
Because the single term "cousin" in English includes both degrees and removals, any given individual can have far more cousins among their living relatives than is possible for any other familial relationship. For some individuals, genealogists can track hundreds of cousin relationships back across centuries.
Various government entities have established systems for legal use that can precisely specify kinship with common ancestors any number of generations in the past; for example, in medicine and law, a first cousin is a type of third-degree relative.
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