Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English - family

~ n plural families 1 »PEOPLE WHO ARE CLOSELY RELATED« a group of people who are related to each other, especially a mother, father, and their children  (Ned comes from a big family of eight children. | Do you know the family next door? (also + plural v BrE))  (The family now live in London. | family home/business/holiday etc)  (He grew up knowing that he would take over the family business one day. | nuclear family (=a family consisting of mother, father, and their children) | extended family (=all the people in a family including aunts, uncles, grandparents etc) | one-parent family/single-parent family (=a family in which there is only one parent) | family background (=the sort of family you come from) | she's/he's family informal (=used to say that someone is related to you)) 2 »ALL THE PEOPLE RELATED TO YOU« all the people you are related to, including those who are now dead  (I'm moving to Detroit because I have some family there. (also + plural v BrE))  (My family come from Scotland originally. | be in sb's family (=be owned by someone's family, especially for a long time))  (That painting has been in our family for 200 years. | run in the family (=be a common feature in a particular family))  (Asthma runs in the family.) 3 »CHILDREN« children  (Couples with young families wouldn't want to live here. | start a family (=have children))  (They're getting married next year, and hope to start a family straight away. | bring up/raise a family)  (the problems of bringing up a family on a very low income | a family film/show/etc (=suitable for children as well as adults)) 4 family size/pack/ etc a product sold in a large container packet big enough for a whole family 5 »GROUP OF ANIMALS/THINGS« technical a group of related animals, plants, languages etc  (The cat family includes lions and tigers. | Spanish and Italian are part of the Romance language family.) 6 in the family way old-fashioned pregnant