Meaning
A person who shares one's feelings, attitudes, beliefs or interests, so that one feels a natural kinship with them. Cambridge defines it as a person who has the same opinions, feelings and interests as you. Usually said of friendship, outlook or temperament rather than literal family. Note the dating conflict: Ammer's idiom dictionaries say mid-1800s first use, but the Scott citation of 1819/1820 antedates them. The Anne of Green Gables association is cultural, not an origin claim; the phrase was about ninety years old when Montgomery used it. Cambridge labels it old-fashioned, though current usage disagrees. Regional use: Widespread across US, UK, Canadian, Australian and other English varieties.
Origin
Kindred is old: Wiktionary traces it through Middle English kyndrede from Old English cynn (kin, lineage) plus raeden (condition, state), literally the condition of being kin, with an epenthetic d added between the sounds. Extending that kinship from blood to temperament, the earliest citation for 'kindred spirit' on Wiktionary is Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (dated December 1819, printed with an 1820 title page): 'I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I have found such in thee' - wording verified in Chapter 24 on Wikisource. Dickens used it in Martin Chuzzlewit (1842-44) and Henry James in The Ambassadors (1903). Christine Ammer's American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms dates the idiom to the mid-1800s, which the Scott citation antedates; her Dictionary of Cliches quotes George Eliot's 1849 letter, 'You won't find any kindred spirits at Plongeon'. The phrase gained its most famous showcase in L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (1908), whose Wikipedia article calls Diana Barry 'Anne's best friend and a kindred spirit' - the novel popularized the term, it did not coin it. Cambridge now labels the phrase old-fashioned, though it remains widely used.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- kindred soul
- kindred souls
Usage Examples
- Within an hour of meeting at the conference, the two conservators knew they were kindred spirits.
- She searched the whole village for a kindred spirit and finally found one in the postmistress.
- A kindred spirit answers your letter the day it arrives.