συγγενίς

From the study of Luke 1:36

Range of meaning

A woman of one's own kin or extended family. It is the feminine of συγγενής ("born together" or "of the same family"), which covers anyone related by blood and sometimes by marriage: siblings, cousins of any degree, aunts, clan members. In the Greek of the time it could even mean a fellow member of one's people (Paul calls fellow Jews his συγγενεῖς in Rom 9:3).

Against the English

BSB, WEB and most modern versions have 'relative'. YLT has 'kinswoman'. The KJV has 'cousin', which in 1611 meant any kinsperson, but which modern readers take as 'first cousin', the daughter of a parent's sibling.

How it drifted

In early modern English 'cousin' (from Latin consobrinus and Old French cosin) was used broadly for any relative: a nephew, a niece, or even a fellow noble. Shakespeare's kings call one another 'cousin'. The meaning later narrowed to the child of an aunt or uncle, so the KJV's accurate 1611 word now suggests a precise relationship the Greek never states.

Used elsewhere in the period

συγγενίς is a later feminine form. Grammarians who defended classical Attic Greek objected to it, preferring συγγενής for both genders, and the Byzantine manuscripts of this verse do read συγγενής. Documentary papyri and inscriptions use the word group for broad family ties, and in the Hellenistic courts 'kinsman' was even an honorary title (BDAG; Moulton–Milligan). The Latin Vulgate has 'cognata tua' ('your kinswoman'), which is just as general.