family

fam·i·ly  (fm-l, fml)

n. pl. fam·i·lies

1.

a. A fundamental social group in society typically consisting of one or two parents and their children.

b. Two or more people who share goals and values, have long-term commitments to one another, and reside usually in the same dwelling place.

2. All the members of a household under one roof.

3. A group of persons sharing common ancestry. See Usage Note at collective noun.

4. Lineage, especially distinguished lineage.

5. A locally independent organized crime unit, as of the Cosa Nostra.

6.

a. A group of like things; a class.

b. A group of individuals derived from a common stock: the family of human beings.

7. Biology A taxonomic category of related organisms ranking below an order and above a genus. A family usually consists of several genera. See Table at taxonomy.

8. Linguistics A group of languages descended from the same parent language, such as the Indo-European language family.

9. Mathematics A set of functions or surfaces that can be generated by varying the parameters of a general equation.

10. Chemistry A group of elements with similar chemical properties.

11. Chemistry A vertical column in the periodic table of elements.

adj.

1. Of or having to do with a family: family problems.

2. Being suitable for a family: family movies.

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[Middle English familie, from Latin familia, household, servants of a household, from famulus, servant.]

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family

Noun

pl -lies

1. a social group consisting of parents and their offspring Related adjective familial

2. one's wife or husband and one's children

3. one's children

4. a group descended from a common ancestor

5. all the people living together in one household

6. any group of related objects or beings: a family of chemicals

7. Biol one of the groups into which an order is divided, containing one or more genera: the cat family

Adjective

1. of or suitable for a family or any of its members: films for a family audience

2. in the family way Informal pregnant [Latin familia]

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family  (fm-l)

A group of organisms ranking above a genus and below an order. The names of families end in -ae, a plural ending in Latin. In the animal kingdom, family names end in -idae, as in Canidae (dogs and their kin), while those in the plant kingdom usually end in -aceae, as in Rosaceae (roses and their kin). See Table at taxonomy.

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Family an assembly of objects with some common feature; a body of servants in a house; the members of a family. See also clan, set.

Examples: family of curves, 1741; of gladiators; of languages, 1875; of legends; of myths; of servants, 1722; of thieves, 1749; of yews, 1731.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	family - a social unit living together; "he moved his family to Virginia"; "It was a good Christian household"; "I waited until the whole house was asleep"; "the teacher asked how many people made up his home" household, menage, home, house broken home - a family in which the parents have separated or divorced conjugal family, nuclear family - a family consisting of parents and their children and grandparents of a marital partner extended family - a family consisting of the nuclear family and their blood relatives foster family - the family of a fosterling foster home - a household in which an orphaned or delinquent child is placed (usually by a social-service agency) menage a trois - household for three; an arrangement where a married couple and a lover of one of them live together while sharing sexual relations social unit, unit - an organization regarded as part of a larger social group; "the coach said the offensive unit did a good job"; "after the battle the soldier had trouble rejoining his unit"
	2.	family - primary social group; parents and children; "he wanted to have a good job before starting a family" family unit kin group, kindred, kinship group, clan, kin, tribe - group of people related by blood or marriage mates, couple, match - a pair of people who live together; "a married couple from Chicago" man and wife, married couple, marriage - two people who are married to each other; "his second marriage was happier than the first"; "a married couple without love" child, kid - a human offspring (son or daughter) of any age; "they had three children"; "they were able to send their kids to college" parent - a father or mother; one who begets or one who gives birth to or nurtures and raises a child; a relative who plays the role of guardian sib, sibling - a person's brother or sister
	3.	family - a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there are two classes of detergents" category, class grammatical category, syntactic category - (grammar) a category of words having the same grammatical properties substitution class, paradigm - the class of all items that can be substituted into the same position (or slot) in a grammatical sentence (are in paradigmatic relation with one another) aggregation, collection, accumulation, assemblage - several things grouped together or considered as a whole brass family - (music) the family of brass instruments violin family - (music) the family of bowed stringed instruments woodwind family - (music) the family of woodwind instruments stamp - a type or class; "more men of his stamp are needed" sex - either of the two categories (male or female) into which most organisms are divided; "the war between the sexes" declension - a class of nouns or pronouns or adjectives in Indo-European languages having the same (or very similar) inflectional forms; "the first declension in Latin" conjugation - a class of verbs having the same inflectional forms denomination - a class of one kind of unit in a system of numbers or measures or weights or money; "he flashed a fistful of bills of large denominations" histocompatibility complex - a family of fifty or more genes on the sixth human chromosome that code for proteins on the surfaces of cells and that play a role in the immune response superphylum - (biology) a taxonomic group ranking between a phylum and below a class or subclass
	4.	family - people descended from a common ancestor; "his family has lived in Massachusetts since the Mayflower" kinfolk, kinsfolk, phratry, family line, sept, folk people - members of a family line; "his people have been farmers for generations"; "are your people still alive?" homefolk - the people of your home locality (especially your own family); "he wrote his homefolk every day" house - aristocratic family line; "the House of York" dynasty - a sequence of powerful leaders in the same family gens, name - family based on male descent; "he had no sons and there was no one to carry on his name" blood line, bloodline, ancestry, lineage, pedigree, stemma, line of descent, parentage, blood, origin, descent, stock, line - the descendants of one individual; "his entire lineage has been warriors"
	5.	family - a person having kinship with another or others; "he's kin"; "he's family" kin, kinsperson affine - (anthropology) kin by marriage relative, relation - a person related by blood or marriage; "police are searching for relatives of the deceased"; "he has distant relations back in New Jersey"
	6.	family - (biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more genera; "sharks belong to the fish family" Bunyaviridae - a large family of arboviruses that affect a wide range of hosts (mainly vertebrates and arthropods) Filoviridae - a family of threadlike RNA viruses that cause diseases in humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys and chimpanzees) Togaviridae - a family of arboviruses carried by arthropods Flaviviridae - a family of arboviruses carried by arthropods Arenaviridae - a family of arborviruses carried by arthropods Rhabdoviridae - a family of arborviruses carried by arthropods Reoviridae - a family of arboviruses carried by arthropods bacteria family - a family of bacteria protoctist family - any of the families of Protoctista Endamoebidae, family Endamoebidae - a large family of endoparasitic amebas that invade the digestive tract fish family - any of various families of fish chordate family - any family in the phylum Chordata bird family - a family of warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates characterized by feathers and forelimbs modified as wings amphibian family - any family of amphibians reptile family - a family of reptiles arthropod family - any of the arthropods mammal family - a family of mammals coelenterate family - a family of coelenterates ctenophore family - a family of ctenophores worm family - a family of worms mollusk family - a family of mollusks family Panorpidae, Panorpidae - a family of insects of the order Mecoptera Bittacidae, family Bittacidae - a family of predacious tropical insects of the order Mecoptera echinoderm family - a family of echinoderms biological science, biology - the science that studies living organisms taxon, taxonomic category, taxonomic group - animal or plant group having natural relations order - (biology) taxonomic group containing one or more families form family - (biology) an artificial taxonomic category for organisms of which the true relationships are obscure subfamily - (biology) a taxonomic category below a family tribe - (biology) a taxonomic category between a genus and a subfamily genus - (biology) taxonomic group containing one or more species moss family - a family of mosses liliopsid family, monocot family - family of flowering plants having a single cotyledon (embryonic leaf) in the seed dicot family, magnoliopsid family - family of flowering plants having two cotyledons (embryonic leaves) in the seed which usually appear at germination fungus family - includes lichen families plant family - a family of plants fern family - families of ferns and fern allies
	7.	family - a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized criminal activities crime syndicate, syndicate, mob gangdom, gangland, organized crime - underworld organizations Cosa Nostra, Maffia, Mafia - a crime syndicate in the United States; organized in families; believed to have important relations to the Sicilian Mafia
	8.	family - an association of people who share common beliefs or activities; "the message was addressed not just to employees but to every member of the company family"; "the church welcomed new members into its fellowship" fellowship association - a formal organization of people or groups of people; "he joined the Modern Language Association" koinonia - Christian fellowship or communion with God or with fellow Christians; said in particular of the early Christian community

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family

noun 1. relations, people, children, issue, relatives, household, folk (informal) offspring, descendants, brood, kin, nuclear family, progeny, kindred, next of kin, kinsmen, ménage, kith and kin, your nearest and dearest, kinsfolk, your own flesh and blood, ainga N.Z. rellies Austral. (slang)

noun 2. children, kids (informal) offspring, little ones, munchkins (informal), chiefly U.S. littlies Austral. (informal)

noun 3. ancestors, forebears, parentage, forefathers, house, line, race, blood, birth, strain, tribe, sept, clan, descent, dynasty, pedigree, extraction, ancestry, lineage, genealogy, line of descent, stemma, stirps

noun 4. species, group, class, system, order, kind, network, genre, classification, subdivision, subclass >> adjective familial

USAGE Some careful writers insist that a singular verb should always be used with collective nouns such as government, team, family, committee, and class, for example: the class is doing a project on Vikings; the company is mounting a big sales campaign. In British usage, however, a plural verb is often used with a collective noun, especially where the emphasis is on a collection of individual objects or people rather than a group regarded as a unit: the family are all on holiday. The most important thing to remember is never to treat the same collective noun as both singular and plural in the same sentence: the family is well and sends its best wishes or the family are well and send their best wishes, but not the family is well and send their best wishes.

Translations

family [ˈfæmɪlɪ] n → familia

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family [ˈfæmɪlɪ] n → famille f

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family [ˈfæmɪlɪ] n → Familie f;

(relations) → Verwandtschaft f

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family [ˈfæmɪlɪ] n → famiglia