A cousin or relative from the country, to whom the sights and life of the town are novel; one whose ‘countrified’ manners and ways are apt to embarrass town relatives.
1770. Foote, Lame Lover, II. 41. Not to be pester’d at table with the odious company of clients, and country cousins.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1825), VII. lxviii. 159. Escorting two or three coaches full of country-cousins, on their first importation into London.
1887. T. A. Trollope, What I remember, I. ii. 31. One of the sights of London for country cousins was to see the mails starting at 8 P.M. from the Post Office.
Hence Country-cousin v., to treat as a country-cousin; Country-cousinship, a relationship felt as awkward or embarrassing.
1870. Miss Broughton, Red as Rose, I. 139. If they are fine, and inclined to ‘country cousin’ me.
1870. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 21, note. The brain is often forced to acknowledge the inconvenient country-cousinship of the stomach. Ibid., 364. Theory is too fine a dame to confess even a country-cousinship with coarse-handed Practice.
