Entry · catalog no. 1052
play cousin
/ /pleɪ ˈkʌz.ən/ /play KUZ-in
noun · Nationwide · 1900s
✓ Verified
1.
Someone you were raised alongside and call family, with no blood between you. Not a lesser cousin — a cousin, with the "play" only marking how the tie was made.
“That's my play cousin, our mamas came up together.”
Origin & Attribution
Black American kinship practice with West African roots, where the community holds the child and family is a matter of obligation, not genealogy. Scholars call it fictive kin; families just call it cousin. Documented across Black family studies since the mid-twentieth century.
1900s
Rooted in West African kinship practice
1960s
Documented in Black family studies
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Nationwide · 1900s
Spoken by
Black families nationwide
$PLAYCOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady76 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
55/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1950
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Carol Stack, All Our Kin — ethnography · 1974
submitted
■
Robert B. Hill, The Strengths of Black Families — study · 1971
submitted
■
+ Cite a source"Non-Biological (Fictive Kin and Othermothers)," Journal of Genetic Counseling — scholarship · 2016
submitted
See also