Stepsibling

Charles and David are step-siblings as they are joined by the marriage of their parents Ben and Agatha.

Step-siblings are children born of two different families who have been joined by marriage. A male step-sibling is a stepbrother and a female is a stepsister. The step-siblings relationship is connected through law and is not a blood relation.

Step-siblings are sometimes abbreviated informally as stepsibs.^[1]

In many fairy tales, the central character has a stepmother and the step-siblings serve as an extension of their mother. Cinderella and Mother Hulda features wicked stepsisters who take after their parents. The story Kate Crackernuts serves as a counterexample where the daughter of the evil stepparent is a loving stepsister.^[2]

Many romance novels feature heroes who are the stepbrother of the heroine. The step-relationship generally stems from a marriage when the hero and heroine are at least in their adolescence. ^{[citation needed ]}

Some family films and television sitcoms feature a blended nuclear family including siblings as the center premise. In many cases, the step-family is large and full of children causing situations such as sibling rivalry, rooming, falling in love, and getting along amongst the children as popular plot-lines. This premise gained traction with the 1968 films Yours, Mine and Ours and With Six You Get Eggroll and the 1969 launch of the television sitcom The Brady Bunch . Some contemporary family sitcoms have made the blended family sitcom more popular with the TGIF show Step by Step bringing about other shows such as Aliens in the Family , Life with Derek , Drake & Josh , and the short-lived NBC family sitcom Something So Right . The Disney Channel animated series Phineas and Ferb also prominently features a blended family, chosen by co-creator Jeff "Swampy" Marsh in part due to its under-use in children's programming, and his personal experiences growing up in such a family.^[3]

• The dictionary definition of stepsibling at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of stepsib at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of stepsister at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of stepsis at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of stepbrother at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of stepbro at Wiktionary