The word “nibling” sounds like something you’d use in the meal setting —“Stop nibling on the cheese before dinner!”—but it’s actually a clever, gender-neutral term for your nieces and nephews. Imagine you’ve got a mix of nieces and nephews running around, and you’re tired of saying “my nieces and nephews” every time—boom, you drop “niblings” and suddenly you sound cool and inclusive. It’s the “sibling” of the niece/nephew world—no need to sort the kids by gender like you’re organizing laundry. Just scoop them all up in one handy word and get on with your day.
As for its origin, “nibling” wasn’t discovered in some ancient scroll or yelled by a Roman at a family reunion—it was actually coined in the 1950s by a linguist who probably just wanted to make holiday conversations easier. It’s obviously a combo of niece/nephew and the -ling suffix, which is how we also got words like “sibling” and “duckling” (adorable, right?). While it’s not in all the dictionaries yet, “nibling” is catching on in the wild, used by cool uncles, hip aunts, and anyone trying to avoid gendered language—or just looking for an excuse to say something that sounds a bit like a snack.
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