äitilapsi

Äitilapsi is an Estonian noun that denotes a child of one’s mother. The term focuses on the maternal side of kinship and can refer to a person in relation to their mother. In practice, it is most often encountered in descriptive, genealogical, or linguistic contexts rather than in casual everyday speech. The concept is used when a speaker wants to emphasize maternal lineage or when discussing family relationships in a more formal or technical way.

The word is formed from two common Estonian roots: äiti meaning mother and laps meaning child. As a compound noun, äitilapsi is part of standard Estonian morphology and can appear in different grammatical forms depending on case and number, just as other kinship terms do in Estonian. In written language, it may also appear in hyphenated form as äiti-laps, especially in compound phrases or when clarity is needed in genealogical charts.

Usage notes:

- Äitilapsi tends to be more common in dictionaries, scholarly works, genealogical documentation, and discussions of kinship terminology rather than in everyday conversation.

- The term highlights the maternal connection and is used to describe a person with reference to their mother’s side of the family.

See also:

- Kinship terms in Estonian

- Family relationships in Estonian

- Lapse terms and their use in linguistic descriptions

The term illustrates how Estonian words commonly combine familiar roots to build precise kinship descriptors, with äitilapsi specifically drawing attention to the mother–child relationship.