as in cousins
a person connected with another by blood or marriage
it's always fun to see all your relatives at a big family gathering
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of relatives
Truman had been shunted off to relatives and marked as an outsider from the beginning.
—
Literary Hub, 12 Jan. 2026
Mourners react after the death of their relatives following a powerful gas cylinder explosion at a wedding function in a neighborhood of Islamabad on January 11, 2026.
—CBS News, 12 Jan. 2026
Either way, the vast majority of Venezuela's political detainees remain behind bars and for their relatives, the waiting game continues.
—John Otis, NPR, 12 Jan. 2026
State television has broadcast images of people attending morgues to identify bodies of friends and relatives.
—David Brennan, ABC News, 12 Jan. 2026
The former Radio Farda journalist Reza Valizadeh traveled to Iran in March 2024 to visit relatives, according to a report by United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) on American hostages held in Iran.
—Benjamin Weinthal, FOXNews.com, 12 Jan. 2026
One of those relatives, cousin Hilary, was played by Karyn Parsons over the show’s six seasons.
—Juliet Pennington, PEOPLE, 12 Jan. 2026
There have been skirmishes with Thiago’s distant relatives, the ones still living in isolation deep in the territory.
—Sadia Shepard, New Yorker, 11 Jan. 2026
Tapachula returns to normalcy While some migrants remain in Tapachula, gone are the thousands of migrants, including entire families, sleeping on sidewalks, gathered in parks, packed in cheap hotel rooms, or lined up outside banks awaiting money transfers from relatives abroad.
—Daniel Gonzalez, USA Today, 9 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for relatives
Noun
-
The group included Sophie Fergi, Gavin Magnus, Walker Bryant, Sawyer Sharbino, Hayden Haas, Corinne Joy, Jentzen Ramirez, Raegan Beast, Symonne Harrison and Piper’s cousins, Claire and Reese Rock Smith.—
-
But what’s good enough for German and United Kingdom patients apparently isn’t good enough for their transatlantic cousins.—
Noun
-
Greenland, as part of the Danish realm, is covered by NATO’s collective defense guarantees, meaning any use of force against it would reverberate across the alliance and risk a severe rupture in transatlantic relations.—
-
As Iran weakens, a power vacuum is emerging across the Middle East — and Saudi Arabia is moving to fill it by recalibrating relations with former rivals, hedging global partnerships and asserting a more independent foreign policy, according to several experts.—
Cite this Entry
“Relatives.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/relatives. Accessed 20 Jan. 2026.
Love words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
