family
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "family", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "family" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "family" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
family is aEnglishnoun. It means: A 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. Pronounced /ˈfæ.m(ɪ.)li/. It ranks #205 in English word frequency. Often confused with famine and fail.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | family |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈfæ.m(ɪ.)li/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #205 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for family is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈfæ.m(ɪ.)li/. Corpus data places it at rank #205 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for family, with forms such as "afmily", "faimly", and "familly". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "famine", "fail", "fails", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Middle English famylye, from Latin familia (“a household”). Displaced native Old English hīred. Doublet of familia. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is family, spelled F-A-M-I-L-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A 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.
- 2An extended family: a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.
- 3A nuclear family: a mother and father who are married and cohabiting and their child or children.
- 4Members of one's family collectively.
- 5A (close-knit) group of people related by blood, friendship, marriage, law, or custom, especially if they live or work together.
- 6A (close-knit) group of people related by blood, friendship, marriage, law, or custom, especially if they live or work together.
- 7Lineage, especially honorable or noble lineage.
- 8Any group or aggregation of things classed together as kindred or related from possessing in common characteristics which distinguish them from other things of the same order.
- 9Any group or aggregation of things classed together as kindred or related from possessing in common characteristics which distinguish them from other things of the same order.
- 10Any group or aggregation of things classed together as kindred or related from possessing in common characteristics which distinguish them from other things of the same order.
- 11Any group or aggregation of things classed together as kindred or related from possessing in common characteristics which distinguish them from other things of the same order.
- 12Any group or aggregation of things classed together as kindred or related from possessing in common characteristics which distinguish them from other things of the same order.
Etymology
From Late Middle English famylye, from Latin familia (“a household”). Displaced native Old English hīred. Doublet of familia.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: afmily,faimly,familly,familyy,famiyl,famliy,fammily,ffamily,fmaily
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for family
Misspelling Variants of "family"
Frequency rank: #205 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter F in our English index: