 4 definitions found
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
family
noun
1: a social unit living together; "he moved his family to
Virginia"; "It was a good Christian household"; "I
waited until the whole house was asleep"; "the teacher
asked how many people made up his home" [syn: {household},
{house}, {home}, {menage}]
2: primary social group; parents and children; "he wanted to
have a good job before starting a family" [syn: {family
unit}]
3: people descended from a common ancestor; "his family has
lived in Massachusetts since the Mayflower" [syn: {family
line}, {folk}, {kinfolk}, {kinsfolk}, {sept}, {phratry}]
4: a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there
are two classes of detergents" [syn: {class}, {category}]
5: an association of people who share common beliefs or
activities; "the message was addressed not just to
employees but to every member of the company family"; "the
church welcomed new members into its fellowship" [syn: {fellowship}]
6: (biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more genera;
"sharks belong to the fish family"
7: a person having kinship with another or others; "he's kin";
"he's family" [syn: {kin}, {kinsperson}]
8: a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized
criminal activities [syn: {syndicate}, {crime syndicate},
{mob}]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
natural family \nat"u*ral fam"i*ly\, noun (Biol.)
a group of living organisms classed as a {family} in a
toxonomic classification.
[PJC]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Family \Fam"i*ly\, noun; pl. {Families}. [L. familia, fr. famulus
servant; akin to Oscan famel servant, cf. faamat he dwells,
Skr. dh[=a]man house, fr. dh[=a]to set, make, do: cf. F.
famille. Cf. {Do}, verb (used with an object), {Doom}, {Fact}, {Feat}.]
1. The collective body of persons who live in one house, and
under one head or manager; a household, including parents,
children, and servants, and, as the case may be, lodgers
or boarders.
2. The group comprising a husband and wife and their
dependent children, constituting a fundamental unit in the
organization of society.
The welfare of the family underlies the welfare of
society. --H. Spencer.
3. Those who descend from one common progenitor; a tribe,
clan, or race; kindred; house; as, the human family; the
family of Abraham; the father of a family.
Go ! and pretend your family is young. --Pope.
4. Course of descent; genealogy; line of ancestors; lineage.
5. Honorable descent; noble or respectable stock; as, a man
of family.
6. A group of kindred or closely related individuals; as, a
family of languages; a family of States; the chlorine
family.
7. (Biol.) A group of organisms, either animal or vegetable,
related by certain points of resemblance in structure or
development, more comprehensive than a genus, because it
is usually based on fewer or less pronounced points of
likeness. In zo["o]logy a family is less comprehesive than
an order; in botany it is often considered the same thing
as an order.
{Family circle}. See under {Circle}.
{Family man}.
(a) A man who has a family; esp., one who has a wife and
children living with him and dependent upon him.
(b) A man of domestic habits. ''The Jews are generally,
when married, most exemplary family men.'' --Mayhew.
{Family of curves} or {Family of surfaces} (Geom.), a group
of curves or surfaces derived from a single equation.
{In a family way}, like one belonging to the family. ''Why
don't we ask him and his ladies to come over in a family
way, and dine with some other plain country gentlefolks?''
--Thackeray.
{In the family way}, pregnant. [Colloq. euphemism]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
199 Moby Thesaurus words for "family":
affiliation, agnate, ancestors, ancestry, animal kingdom,
antonomasia, apparentation, ashram, binomial nomenclature,
biosystematics, biosystematy, biotype, birth, blood,
blood relation, blood relative, bloodline, body, branch, breed,
brood, caste, children, clan, clannish, clansman, class,
classification, cognate, collateral, collateral relative, colony,
common ancestry, commonwealth, commune, community, connections,
consanguinean, consanguinity, deme, derivation, descendants,
descent, diphyletic, direct, direct line, distaff side,
distant relation, division, dynasty, economic class, enate,
endogamous group, ethnic, extended family, extraction, family tree,
female line, filiation, flesh, flesh and blood, folk, folks,
forebears, forefathers, fruit, genealogical, genealogy, genetic,
genotype, genre, gens, gentile, gentilic, genus, german, get,
glossology, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, group, hearth,
heirs, home, homefolks, hostages to fortune, house, household,
inheritors, issue, kids, kin, kind, kindred, kinfolk, kingdom,
kinnery, kinsfolk, kinship group, kinsman, kinsmen, kinswoman,
kith and kin, line, line of descent, lineage, lineal, little ones,
male line, matriclan, menage, moiety, nation, national,
near relation, new generation, next of kin, nomenclature,
nuclear family, offspring, onomastics, onomatology, order,
orismology, parentage, patriclan, pedigree, people, phratria,
phratry, phyle, phyletic, phylogenetic, phylum, place-names,
place-naming, plant kingdom, polyonymy, posterity, progenitors,
progeny, race, racial, relations, relatives, rising generation,
section, seed, sept, series, set, settlement, sib, sibling, side,
social class, society, sons, spear kin, spear side, species,
spindle kin, spindle side, stem, stirp, stirps, stock, strain,
subcaste, subclass, subdivision, subfamily, subgenus, subkingdom,
suborder, subspecies, subtribe, succession, superclass,
superfamily, superorder, superspecies, sword side, systematics,
taxonomy, terminology, toponymy, totem, totemic, treasures, tribal,
tribe, tribesman, trinomialism, type, uterine kin, variety,
younglings, youngsters
|
