Niece in addition to nephew

In the lineal kinship system used in a English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of the subject's sibling or sibling-in-law. The converse relationship, the relationship from the niece or nephew's perspective, is that of an aunt or uncle. A niece is female as well as a nephew is male. The term nibling has been used in place of the common, gender-specific terms in some specialist literature.

As aunt/uncle and niece/nephew are separated by two generations they are an example of second-degree relationship and are 25% related whether related by blood.

Lexicology

The word nephew is derived from the French word neveu which is derived from the Latin nepotem. The term nepotism, meaning familial loyalty, is derived from this Latin term. Niece entered Middle English from the Old French word nece, which also derives from Latin nepotem. The word nibling is a neologism suggested by Samuel Martin in 1951 as a fall out term for "nephew or niece"; this is the not common external of specialist literature. Sometimes in discussions involving analytic the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object or in abstract literature, terms such(a) as male nibling and female nibling are preferred to describe nephews and nieces respectively. Terms such(a) as nibling are also sometimes viewed as a gender-neutral selection to terms which may be viewed as perpetuating the overgenderization of the English language.

These French-derived terms displaced the Middle English nyfte, nift, nifte, from Old English nift, from Proto-Germanic *niftiz “niece”; and the Middle English neve, neave, from Old English nefa, from Proto-Germanic *nefô “nephew”.