family

plural families

1. countableuncountableA group of people who are closely related to one another (by blood, marriage or adoption); kin; in particular, a set of parents and their children; an immediate family.

   Our family lives in town.

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   To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merit she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive information, he was the person, to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just, as what Jane felt for Bingley.

   1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 200

   Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability:[…]it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.

   1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC

   America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four. In the richer parts of the emerging world $4 a day is the poverty barrier. But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 ([…]): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.

   2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, archived from the original on 05 Sep 2024, page 11

   Both brides and grooms in native Hawaiian tradition wear flower garlands as a physical manifestation of their love for one another, and to some, the twining of the stems is reflective of two families now becoming one. A more tourist-friendly version established in the past couple of decades involves winding the leis around the couple’s hands to bind them together.

   2013 August 30, Kat Kinsman, “Something borrowed: Wedding traditions from around the world”, in CNN

   They’re both New Yorkers coasting on their reputations, they’ve both had three marriages, neither of them can shut up when in front of a camera, and perhaps most importantly, they both want to fuck Ivanka, which-which is weird for Trump because Ivanka is in his family, and it’s weird for Giuliani because she isn’t.

   2018 May 6, “Rudy Giuliani”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 5, episode 10, John Oliver (actor), via HBO

   1. collectivecountableuncountableA group of related animals, usually a mother and offspring, a mating pair or larger lineages in some species.
2. countableuncountableAn extended family: a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.
3. countableuncountableA nuclear family: a mother and father who are married and cohabiting and their child or children.

   We must preserve the family unit if we want to save civilisation!

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   The cultural struggle is for the survival of family values against all manner of atheistic amorality.

4. uncountableMembers of one's family collectively.

   I have a lot of family in Australia.

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   He has a sister, but no other family.

5. countableuncountableA (close-knit) group of people related by blood, friendship, marriage, law, or custom, especially if they live or work together.

   crime family, Mafia family

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   This is my fraternity family at the university.

   Our company is one big happy family.

   1. slanguncountableLGBTThe gay community.

      […]This is not your hallmark im Ames, Iowa. And there is “family” working there . . . no radar like gaydar, I always say.

      1982 July 15, Gloria Godqueen, “What's in a card”, in Bay Area Reporter, volume 12, number 28, page 7

6. uncountableLineage, especially honorable or noble lineage.

   Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she had not even 'family'; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more.

   1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC

7. countableuncountableAny group or aggregation of things classed together as kindred or related from possessing in common characteristics which distinguish them from other things of the same order.

   Doliracetam is a drug from the racetam family.

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   Because SCSI is actually a family of standards, each with its own cable and connector, matching cables and connectors to the appropriate SCSI “family member” is important.

   2001, Scott Mueller, Mark Edward Soper, Upgrading and Repairing PCs: Technician's Portable Reference, Que Publishing, →ISBN, page 115

   When creating a font family, first decide whether to use all serif or all sans-serif fonts, then choose two or three fonts of that type […]

   2010, Gary Shelly, Jennifer Campbell, Ollie Rivers, Microsoft Expression Web 3: Complete, page 262

   Of the great Indo-European family of languages the general principal was also that of one name for each individual[…]

   1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xi

   1. countableuncountablebiologyA category in the classification of organisms, ranking below order and above genus; a taxon at that rank.

      Magnolias belong to the family Magnoliaceae.

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      The closest affinities of the Jubulaceae are with the Lejeuneaceae. The two families share in common: a elaters usually 1-spiral, trumpet-shaped and fixed to the capsule valves, distally[…].

      1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 4

      Synonyms: familia

   2. countablemathematicsA collection of sets, especially of subsets of a given set.

      Let #92;mathcalF be a family of subsets over S.

   3. countableuncountableentertainmentA group of instruments having the same basic method of tone production.

      the brass family;  the violin family

   4. countableuncountablehuman sciencesA group of languages believed to have descended from the same ancestral language.

      the Afroasiatic family

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      the Indo-European family

      Synonyms: language family

1. not comparableSuitable for children and adults.

   This is a family restaurant, stop making out!

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   It's not good for a date, it's a family restaurant.

   Some animated movies are not just for kids, they are family movies.

2. not comparableslangLGBTHomosexual.

   I knew he was family when I first met him.