family

Syllables: fa·mi·ly/ˈfaməlɪj//ˈfæm(ɪ)li/

family noun: 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.

Image: Boasson and Eggler St. Petersburg Nevsky 24, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

family (countable and uncountable, plural families)

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.
- Our family lives in town.
- 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...1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 200
1. (collective) A group of related animals, usually a mother and offspring, a mating pair or larger lineages in some species.
An extended family: a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.
A nuclear family: a mother and father who are married and cohabiting and their child or children.
- The cultural struggle is for the survival of family values against all manner of atheistic amorality.
- We must preserve the family unit if we want to save civilisation!
(uncountable) Members of one's family collectively.
- I have a lot of family in Australia.
- He has a sister, but no other family.
A (close-knit) group of people related by blood, friendship, marriage, law, or custom, especially if they live or work together.
- crime family, Mafia family
- This is my fraternity family at the university.
1. (slang, uncountable) The 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
(uncountable) Lineage, 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
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.
- Doliracetam is a drug from the racetam family.
- 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
1. A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below order and above genus; a taxon at that rank.
  - Magnolias belong to the family Magnoliaceae.
  - 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
2. (countable) A collection of sets, especially of subsets of a given set.
  - Let #92;mathcalF be a family of subsets over S.
3. A group of instruments having the same basic method of tone production.
  - the brass family; the violin family
4. A group of languages believed to have descended from the same ancestral language.
  - the Indo-European family
  - the Afroasiatic family

Adjective

family (not comparable)

Suitable for children and adults.
- It's not good for a date, it's a family restaurant.
- Some animated movies are not just for kids, they are family movies.
(slang) Homosexual.
- I knew he was family when I first met him.

family meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

family in Hindi

immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and their children: परिवार parivār, कुटुंब kuṭumb, वंश vañś, कुल kul, गृहस्थी gŕhasthī
group of people related by blood, marriage, law, or custom: परिवार parivār, ख़ानदान xāndān, कुटुंब kuṭumb, कुल kul, वंश vañś, घराना gharānā
rank in a taxonomic classification, above both genus and species: कुल kul

family in Tamil

immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and their children: குடும்பம் kuṭumpam

family in Marathi

immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and their children: कुटुंब kuṭumba

family in Urdu

immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and their children: خانْدان xāndān, عائِلَہ 'āila, کُنْبَہ kunba, پَرِوار parivār, اَہْل و عَیال ahl o 'ayāl, گَھر بار ghar bār
group of people related by blood, marriage, law, or custom: خانْدان xāndān, پَرِوار parivār, دُودْمان dūdmān, اَقارِب aqārib, اَہْل ahl, آل āl
rank in a taxonomic classification, above both genus and species: خانْدان xāndān

More languagesFewer languages

family in Bengali: পরিবার poribar, খানদান khanodan, গোষ্ঠী gōśṭhi, বংশ boṅśo
family in Telugu: కుటుంబము kuṭumbamu, వంశ పరంపర vaṁśa parampara
family in Malayalam: കുടുംബം kuṭumbaṁ, കുലം kulaṁ, ഭാഷാകുടുംബം bhāṣākuṭumbaṁ, ഭാഷാഗോത്രം bhāṣāgōtraṁ
family in Kannada: ಆವಳಿp āvaḷi
family in Punjabi: ਟੱਬਰ ṭabbar, ਪਰਿਵਾਰ parivār, ਖ਼ਾਨਦਾਨ xāndān, ٹَبَّر ṭabbar
family in Gujarati: કુટુંબ kuṭumb, પરિવાર parivār, ખાનદાન khāndān, ઘરબાર gharbār
family in Odia: ପରିବାର paribāra
family in Sanskrit: कुल kula
family in Sinhala: පවුල pawula
family in Assamese: পৰিয়াল porial
family in Nepali: परिबार paribār
family in Pashto: کورنۍ koranëy, عايله 'āyela, خاندان xānadān, فاميل fāmil
family in Tagalog: pamilya, mag-anak, kamag-anakan, angkanhay
family in Arabic: عَائِلَة ʕāʔila, أُسْرَة ʔusra, أَهْل ʔahl, عيلة ʕēla
family in Malay: keluarga, famili, rumpun
family in Indonesian: keluarga, famili, kerabat
family in Persian: خَانَوَادَه xānawāda, خَانْدَان xāndān, عَائِلَه ā'ila, خانِوادِه xânevâde
family in Thai: ครอบครัว krɔ̂ɔp-kruua, ตระกูล dtrà-guun, วงศ์ wong, ตระกูลภาษา dtrà-guun-paa-sǎa
family in Vietnamese: gia đình, gia tộc, họ
family in Myanmar: မိသားစု mi.sa:cu., မျိုးရင်း myui:rang:
Sindhi: خاندان xândân
Dhivehi: އާއިލާ āilā

Examples of family in a sentence

Our company is one big happy family.
This is a family restaurant, stop making out!
America’s poverty line is $63 a day for a family of four.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:
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...

All 40 example sentences with family

Synonyms of family

All synonyms of family

Forms of family

plural	families

Plural of family: families

Origin of family

From Late Middle English famylye, from Latin familia (“a household”). Displaced native Old English hīred and hād. Doublet of familia.

Words formed from family

Phrases with family

101 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with family

hamily

Questions about family

What does family mean?: Family means 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.
What is family in Hindi?: Family in Hindi is परिवार (parivār), कुटुंब (kuṭumb), वंश (vañś). See Family meaning in Hindi.
How do you use family in a sentence?: Our company is one big happy family.
What part of speech is family?: Family can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce family?: Family is pronounced /ˈfæm(ɪ)li/ (UK).
What is the plural of family?: The plural of family is families.

Words near family in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: family (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-family.ogg, en-us-family.ogg.

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