family
IPA: fˈæmʌɫi
noun
- (countable) A 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.
- (countable) An extended family: a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.
- (countable) A nuclear family: a mother and father who are married and cohabiting and their child or children.
- (uncountable) Members of one's family collectively.
- (countable) A (close-knit) group of people related by blood, friendship, marriage, law, or custom, especially if they live or work together.
- (gay slang) The gay community.
- (uncountable) Lineage, especially honorable or noble lineage.
- (countable, biology, taxonomy) A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below order and above genus; a taxon at that rank.
- (countable) Any 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.
- (set theory, countable) A collection of sets, especially of subsets of a given set.
- (countable, music) A group of instruments having the same basic method of tone production.
- (countable, linguistics) A group of languages believed to have descended from the same ancestral language.
- A group of people who are closely related to one another (by blood, marriage or adoption)
adjective
- Suitable for children and adults.
- (gay slang) Homosexual.
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Examples of "family" in Sentences
- His family motto ... _our _family motto ... is 'Who dies, if Hartest live!'"
- We think she's better off as an addition to a family, despised by the first wife and her family***.
- Having some faith in it, she arose immediately and made her wishes known to the family physician, that is, to the _family_, who kindly administered the remedy without delay.
- For this is the form that every tabulation of family pedigree must assume; and therefore the mere fact that a scientific tabulation of natural affinities was eventually found to take the form of a tree, is in itself highly suggestive of the inference that such a tabulation represents a _family_ tree.
- Dad was so flustered (you know how telegrams excite him: they offend all his antiquarian instincts!) -- well, the Bishop said -- _Am sending my favourite curate to call on you magnificent young fellow excellent family very worthy chap will be in Wolverhampton a day or two anxious to have him meet your family_.
- Several years ago he related to the editor the history of the Rackrent family, and it was with some difficulty that he was persuaded to have it committed to writing; however, his feelings for "_the honour of the family_," as he expressed himself, prevailed over his habitual laziness, and he at length completed the narrative which is now aid before the public.
- It also ordered that all the existing pensioners (including family pensioners) would also be eligible for the revised scale of pay and the consequent pension benefits as per GO No. Meanwhile, the Director of Collegiate Education has instructed all the Joint Directors of Collegiate Education to instruct the principals and secretaries of all aided colleges under their jurisdiction to accept the application for revision of pension \family pension with effect from January 1, 2006.
- But if a humble domestic, one who imagines herself so obscure as to be of little service to a world which perhaps estimates her services almost as low as she does herself -- if such an individual may, besides the general influence of her character upon a family, be an indispensable aid in the work of sending forth to the world a host of female missionaries, equal, in the progress of less than two centuries, at the dawn of the millennium, to ninety millions, what may not be done by a sister in _a well ordered family_ -- one who is not only well educated and governed herself, but who educates and governs others well?
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