niephlings
n. A person's nieces and nephews.
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Pronunciation
Etymology
Examples
2014
Oh, and one important difference with the zoo’s kid freebies is that the cutoff is 11 years old. So no tweens here, please. On the upside, parents can now inform their eager 12-year-olds that they are “too grown up” to be considered kids. I know a few of my niephlings would dig that.
—Barbarella Fokos, “Children, children everywhere,” San Diego Reader, October 03, 2014
2013
Excitingly, by the time we arrive for Christmas, the newest niephling, who’s due in about a week courtesy of my other sister, will also be there.
—Francoise Harvey, “Hanky PANKy,” Bookworms and Coffee Monsters, December 08, 2013
2012
She is survived by her mother, Vivienne Remley Forsberg; husband Lou Arnold; daughters Miah Arnold (Raj Mankad) and Piper Regennitter (Tom); grandchildren Lila and Vishwa, and Ashley, Jonny, Natalie, and Addison; and her sisters Patricia Forsberg (Stephen F. Speckart), Suzanne Forsberg, Patricia Carkeek (Riley), and Lucy Kathleen Clixby (Thomas); and niephlings Shaun, Andre, Agatha, and Emma.
—“Helen Elizabeth Forsberg,” Deseret News, April 21, 2012
2007 (earliest)
I think that I heard this on "A Way With Words" — nieflings is a combination of nieces and nephews. So, instead of writing a post on "my niece and nephew," I can write about my nieflings. I haven't been able to find a link to that show, but a Google search for "niefling" or "niephling" identifies other blogs.
—“The Nieflings,” Our Seattle Adventure, November 25, 2007
Notes
This term is another hopeful sign on the long linguistic quest for a gender-neutral collective term for the children of one's siblings. Other examples include niblings (nieces/nephews + siblings), which dates to 1951, and the head-scratcher sofralia (deep breath: so [Latin: "sister"] + fra [Latin: "brother"] + -lia [Latin: "child"]), which was coined earlier this year. I have 2007 as the earliest usage, but it's obvious from the cite that the term is older than that.
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