Entry · catalog no. 1052
play cousin
/ /
noun · Nationwide ·
✓ 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.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Nationwide ·
Spoken by
$PLAYCOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ 26 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
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
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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