“Daughters, brothers, sisters, kith and kin,” wrote George Byron in 1824. “Kith and kin” is an expression that’s still in occasional use, although it’s in decline. And it’s been around for centuries. It’s pretty common knowledge that “kin” means family, but what about “kith”?
“Kith” comes from Old English, and back then it meant “knowledge.” Not any particular sort of knowledge, just information. It had another meaning as well: a person known to you. It was pronounced in two different ways: “kith” and “couth,” which eventually became two different words. But at first, if somebody was “kith” or “couth,” you were acquainted. “Uncouth,” which is a word we still use, meant the opposite; it was somebody you hadn’t met yet.
By the 1300s “kith/couth” was used to mean a different kind of knowledge — that is, knowledge about how to behave; manners. That’s about the time that “kith” and “couth” began to diverge, with “couth” (and “uncouth”) staying with “knowledge of manners,” and “kith” retaining more of a “known person” meaning.
After that, the meaning of “couth” didn’t change much, but the word pretty much faded from use by the late 1800s, leaving just “uncouth,” which was more useful anyway. Maybe there have always been more people with bad manners than good. “Kith,” though, altered meaning again and came to be used for your home town or area, which you knew well, and then for people who came from the same place as you, whether you knew them or not. And that’s where “kith and kin” comes from; it’s your neighbors and your family.
But the phrase is appearing less and less frequently, possibly because people who use it are sometimes puzzled about what they just said. Maybe “kith” will shift meanings again instead of disappearing; after all, we probably need a word to describe “people we only know via social media,” and maybe even “people we’ve only met virtually.” Any suggestions?
