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Synonyms
Examples of kinfolk in a Sentence
let's invite all our kinfolk for the holidays
Recent Examples on the Web
Her body of work testifies to deeply held values among African Americans, who revere so many sentimental little things that were denied Black people during the era of enslavement: the ability to freely give your heart to another, keep kinfolk safe and close, and fully embrace the human experience.
—Craig Seymour, Rolling Stone, 5 Dec. 2023
At the time, Mao Zedong let Inner Mongolians keep the script, in part to distinguish them from kinfolk across the border.
—Christian Shepherd, Washington Post, 10 Dec. 2023
Long, frozen winters and fleeting, lazy summers in this remote area of the country helped forge tightknit bonds — over bonfires, while fishing or snowshoeing, or in musical jam circles — between kinfolk and friends.
—Garret K. Woodward, Rolling Stone, 8 Dec. 2023
Many of them were engulfed by settlers and forced to live on mountainous and agriculturally unproductive land, separated from their kinfolk who had migrated, with their cultural and political systems in a shambles.
—David Treuer, Foreign Affairs, 9 June 2020
Self-defense became second nature to the British-Indian schoolboy, who organized street patrols to protect his kinfolk in Manchester.
—Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 27 June 2023
Often maintaining a certain distance from our kinfolk can help keep us together.
—Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2023
All the kinfolk of the goat had long become food.
—Terrance Hayes, The New Yorker, 24 Jan. 2022
In my many years of navigating friend groups as a Black woman, two maxims have consistently held true: (1) not all skinfolk are your kinfolk; (2) there is a thin line between love and hate, and that tension can often be explored in platonic friendships just as much as romantic ones.
—Shamira Ibrahim, Vulture, 15 Aug. 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'kinfolk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
First Known Use
1873, in the meaning defined above
Dictionary Entries Near kinfolk
Cite this Entry
“Kinfolk.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kinfolk. Accessed 17 Jun. 2024.
Kids Definition
kinfolk
plural noun
kin·folk
ˈkin-ˌfōk
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Merriam-Webster unabridged
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