Family Meaning
/ˈfæm(ɪ)li/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA 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.
nounAn extended family: a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.
Sentence Examples
It has been so long since I last went to Disneyland with my family.
My friends always say I'm too calm, but my family always says I'm too annoying.
I introduced Neil to the other members of my family.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Every Sunday, the entire ____ gathered for a home-cooked dinner.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Spending time with ____ is very important to her, so she always goes home for the holidays.
Word Origin & History
From Late Middle English famylye, from Latin familia (“a household”). Displaced native Old English hīred. Doublet of familia.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 200:
"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."
— 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
"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."
— 2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, archived from the original on 05 Sep 2024, page 11:
"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."
— 2013 August 30, Kat Kinsman, “Something borrowed: Wedding traditions from around the world”, in CNN:
"They’re both New Yorkers coasting on their reputations, they’ve both had three marriages, neither of them can shut up when in front of a camera, and perhaps most importantly, they both want to fuck Ivanka, which-which is weird for Trump because Ivanka is in his family, and it’s weird for Giuliani because she isn’t."
— 2018 May 6, “Rudy Giuliani”, in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, season 5, episode 10, John Oliver (actor), via HBO:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Every Sunday, the entire ____ gathered for a home-cooked dinner.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Spending time with ____ is very important to her, so she always goes home for the holidays.