COUSIN.Elisabeth is called Marys cousin in Luk_1:36, and the relationship is often understood in the modern sense of that word. But cousin in the English of 1611 meant no more than kinsman or kinswoman. The relationship between Mary and Elisabeth is not known.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
kuz?'n (ἀνεψιός, anepsiós): Only in Col_4:10, where Mark is said to be ?cousin? (Revised Version) to Barnabas, and not as in the King James Version, ?sister's son.? The renderings ?cousin? of the King James Version for συγγενής, suggenḗs, in Luk_1:36, Luk_1:58 were probably understood at the time of the translation, in the wider, and not in the more restricted, sense of the term, now almost universally prevalent. In view of this the renderings ?kinswoman,? ?kinsfolk? in the Revised Version (British and American) are preferable. As a title of honor and dignity, it occurs in 1 Esdras 4:42, etc. See KINSMAN.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Cousin
is given (Luk_1:36; Luk_1:58) by the Auth. Vers. in its vague acceptation as the rendering of συγγενής, a blood-relative, or kinsman, as elsewhere translated. So also in the Apocrypha (1Es_3:7; 1Es_4:42; Tob_6:10; 2Ma_11:1; 2Ma_11:35).
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.