family

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)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 tender, at least as reasonable and just, as what Jane felt for Bingley.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. (countable, uncountable)An extended family: a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.
3. (countable, uncountable)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!”

4. (uncountable)Members of one's family collectively.

   “I have a lot of family in Australia.”

   “He has a sister, but no other family.”

5. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “Our company is one big happy family.”

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

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

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.”

8. (countable, uncountable)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.”

   “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 […]”

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

9. (countable, uncountable)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.

   “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[…].”

10. (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.

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

11. (countable, uncountable)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.

    “the brass family;  the violin family”

12. (countable, uncountable)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.

    “the Indo-European family”

    “the Afroasiatic family”

adj

1. (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.”

   “This is a family restaurant, stop making out!”

2. (not-comparable, slang)Homosexual.

   “I knew he was family when I first met him.”