FAM'ILY, noun [Latin familia.]

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. Those who descend from one common progenitor; a tribe or race; kindred; lineage. Thus the Israelites were a branch of the family of Abraham; and the descendants of Reuben, of Manasseh, etc., were called their families. The whole human race are the family of Adam, the human family

3. Course of descent; genealogy; line of ancestors.

Go and complain thy family is young.

4. Honorable descent; noble or respectable stock. He is a man of family

5. A collection or union of nations or states.

The states of Europe were, by the prevailing maxims of its policy, closely united in one family

6. In popular language, an order, class or genus of animals or of other natural productions, having something in common, by which they are distinguished from others; as, quadrupeds constitute a family of animals, and we speak of the family or families of plants.