- a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family.
- a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family.
- the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family.
- the spouse and children of one person: I'm taking the family on vacation next week.
- any group of people closely related by blood or marriage, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family.
- all those people considered as descendants of a common progenitor: the Tudor family of England.
- approved lineage, especially noble, titled, famous, or wealthy ancestry: young men of family.
- a group of people who form a household under one head, including parents, children, servants, etc.
- the staff, or body of assistants, of an official: the presidential family.
- a group of people or things that are related by common characteristics, features, or properties: the family of romantic poets; the halogen family of elements.
- a group of people who are generally not blood relations but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals and, frequently, live together: Many hippie communes of the sixties regarded themselves as families. I’m not in contact with my relatives, so my friends are my family.
- a group of people who are considered to be united in a common occupation or enterprise: Our volunteers are an important part of our hospital family.
- an animal or animals with their young: There goes a duck family crossing the road.
- a group of products or product models made by the same manufacturer or producer: Chevrolet's family of cars.
- the usual major subdivision of an order or suborder in the classification of plants, animals, fungi, etc., usually consisting of several genera.
- a unit of an organized crime syndicate, especially the Mafia or Cosa Nostra, operating in one area under a local leader.
- the largest category into which languages related by common origin can be classified with certainty: Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, and Austronesian are the most widely spoken families of languages.
- Mathematics.
- a given class of solutions of the same basic equation, differing from one another only by the different values assigned to the constants in the equation.
- a class of functions or the like defined by an expression containing a parameter.
- a set.
- of, relating to, or characteristic of a family: a family trait.
- belonging to or used by a family: a family automobile; a family room.
- suitable or appropriate for adults and children: a family amusement park.
- not containing obscene language: The students made a game of looking up swearwords during library time, so the librarian is investing in a new set of family dictionaries.
- a primary social group consisting of parents and their offspring, the principal function of which is provision for its members
- (as modifier)
- one's wife or husband and one's children
- one's children, as distinguished from one's husband or wife
- a group of persons related by blood; a group descended from a common ancestor
- all the persons living together in one household
- any group of related things or beings, esp when scientifically categorized
- any of the taxonomic groups into which an order is divided and which contains one or more genera. Felidae (cat family) and Canidae (dog family) are two families of the order Carnivora
- a group of organisms of the same species living together in a community
- a group of historically related languages assumed to derive from one original language
- an independent local group of the Mafia
- a group of curves or surfaces whose equations differ from a given equation only in the values assigned to one or more constants in each curve
- the isotopes, collectively, that comprise a radioactive series
- pregnant
