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say it: FAM-uh-lee
family is a noun meaning "a social unit living together". It is pronounced /ˈfæməli/ — FAM-uh-lee. It carries 8 recorded senses.
primary social group; parents and children
“he wanted to have a good job before starting a family”
a collection of things sharing a common attribute
“there are two classes of detergents”
a person having kinship with another or others
“he's kin”
“he's family”
(biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more genera
“sharks belong to the fish family”
biology
a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized criminal activities
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”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for family come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.