<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>(plural) families</li><li>a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family</li><li>a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family</li><li>the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family</li><li>the spouse and children of one person: I'm taking the family on vacation next week</li><li>any group of people closely related by blood or marriage, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family</li><li>all those people considered as descendants of a common progenitor: the Tudor family of England</li><li>Chiefly British: approved lineage, especially noble, titled, famous, or wealthy ancestry: young men of family</li><li>a group of people who form a household under one head, including parents, children, servants, etc.</li><li>the staff, or body of assistants, of an official: the presidential family</li><li>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</li><li>a group of people who are generally not blood relations but who share common attitudes, interests, or goals and, frequently, live together: I’m not in contact with my relatives, so my friends are my family; Many hippie communes of the sixties regarded themselves as families</li><li>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</li><li>an animal or animals with their young: There goes a duck family crossing the road</li><li>a group of products or product models made by the same manufacturer or producer: Chevrolet's family of cars</li><li>Biology: the usual major subdivision of an order or suborder in the classification of plants, animals, fungi, etc., usually consisting of several genera</li><li>Slang: a unit of an organized crime syndicate, especially the Mafia or Cosa Nostra, operating in one area under a local leader</li><li>Linguistics: 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</li><li>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</li></ul><p><strong>Adjective</strong></p><ul><li>of, relating to, or characteristic of a family: a family trait</li><li>belonging to or used by a family: a family automobile; a family room</li><li>suitable or appropriate for adults and children: a family amusement park</li><li>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</li></ul>