촌

Etymology 1
, from the Middle Korean reading.

Noun

 * 1) village
 * 2) countryside; country; rural area
 * 1) countryside; country; rural area

Suffix

 * 1) town; area

Etymology 2
, from the Middle Korean reading.

Noun

 * 1) degree of kinship in Korean culture
 * : the chi or Korean inch.
 * : the don, a small unit of weight.

Usage notes
In Korean culture, the relationship between a parent and a child constitutes a single degree of kinship. Thus one’s uncle or aunt is three degrees of kinship (self to parent; parent to grandparent; grandparent to uncle or aunt) removed from oneself, and one’s cousin is four degrees away (uncle or aunt to cousin).

Degrees of kinship are used to conceptualize the relatedness of relatives who are neither siblings nor directly descended from one another. Thus, while both siblings and grandparents are technically two degrees of kinship away from oneself, they are never referred to as such.

As this form of conceptualizing kinship is absent in China and has existed in Korea since before extensive Chinese influence on the family structure began in the fifteenth century, this Sino-Korean word presumably displaced a native Korean term.