Kinfolk are your relatives, the people connected to you by family ties. Your kinfolk include parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins: anyone related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption.

The word has a warm, old-fashioned feel to it, like something you might hear in a folk song or a story set in the countryside. Someone might say “I'm visiting my kinfolk down South” or “The whole kinfolk gathered for Thanksgiving.” It suggests family as a community, the web of people who share your history and heritage.

While relatives is the everyday word and kin sounds more formal, kinfolk carries a sense of belonging and tradition. It reminds us that families are groups of people bound together across generations. When someone talks about their kinfolk, they're acknowledging the living connection to the people who came before them and the stories, values, and memories that get passed down through a family.