Word.ws English Dictionary

familiars

familiars is the plural of familiar.

Meaning of familiar

Noun

familiar (plural familiars)

  1. An attendant spirit, often in animal or demon form.
    • The witch’s familiar was a black cat.
  2. (obsolete) A member of one's family or household.
  3. A member of a pope's or bishop's household.
  4. (obsolete) A close friend.
    • [A] friend of mine, that finding a Receipt in Braſsivola, would needs take Hellebor in ſubſtance, & try it on his own perſon; but had not ſome of his familiars come to viſite him by chance, he had by his indiſcretion hazarded himſelfe; many ſuch I have obſerued.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Concerning the Patient”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry...
  5. (historical) The officer of the Inquisition who arrested suspected people.

See all 9 meanings of familiar

Questions about familiars

What is familiars the plural of?
Familiars is the plural of familiar.

Words near familiars in the dictionary

  1. familiarizers
  2. familiarizes
  3. familiarizing
  4. familiarly
  5. familiarness
  6. familiars
  7. familiary
  8. Familias
  9. familicidal
  10. familicide
  11. familicides

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: familiars (page history and authors); familiar (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “familiars.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/familiars. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.