definition of the word family

Wikipedia has an article on:

Family (people)

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has an article on:

Family (taxonomy)

Wikipedia

Latin familia, from famula (“‘servant’”).

• IPA: /ˈfæməli/, SAMPA: /"f{m@li/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}
• Hyphenation: fa‧mi‧ly

family (countable and uncountable; plural families)

1. (countable) A father, mother and their sons and daughters; also called nuclear family.

   Her nuclear family was very small.

2. (countable) A group of people related by blood, marriage, law, or custom.
3. (countable) A kin, tribe; also called extended family.
4. (countable, biology, taxonomy) A rank in the classification of organisms, below order and above genus; a taxon at that rank.

   Magnolias belong to the family Magnoliaceae.

5. (countable) A group of people who live together.

   This is my fraternity family at the university.

6. (countable) A group of people similar to related by blood, marriage, law, or custom.

   Our company is one big happy family.

7. (uncountable) Collectively, people who are members of one's intimate social group.

   They treated me like family.

8. (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.
9. (countable, music) A group of instrument having the same basic method of tone production.

   the brass family

   the violin family

10. (countable, linguistics) A group of languages believed to have descended from the same ancestral language.

    the Indo-European language family

    the Afro-Asiatic language family

In some dialects, family is used as a plurale tantum.

• See also Wikisaurus:class

Definition from Wiktionary Content avaible with GNU Free Documentation License

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