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PlainSpell

family

fa·mi·lyUK /ˈfæm(ɪ)li/noun, adjective

family is spelled F-A-M-I-L-Y, 3 syllables: fa·mi·ly. The wrong spelling people search most is famly: about 820 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 43 of all searches for the word. Family is a noun meaning “A group of people who are closely related to one another (by blood, marriage or adoption); kin; in…”. The plural of family is families.

How many letters and syllables are in family?

Letters6: F-A-M-I-L-Y
Syllables3: fa·mi·ly
In writing457 times per million words; the 207th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched3; the most searched, famly, about 820 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell family?

Family is spelled F-A-M-I-L-Y. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 35 of the searches for family in either form.

familythe right spelling34,160 searches a month
famlya missing i820 searches a month
famillyan extra l120 searches a month
familiyan extra i60 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is family?

Family appears 457 times per million words in written English, the 207th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce family?

  • UK /ˈfæm(ɪ)li/
  • /ˈfaməlɪj/
  • /ˈfamɪlɪj/

Family has 3 syllables, split fa·mi·ly in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-family.ogg, En-us-family.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of family

  • families plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does family mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    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.

    Our family lives in town.

  2. 2

    A group of related animals, usually a mother and offspring, a mating pair or larger lineages in some species.

  3. 3

    An extended family: a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.

  4. 4

    A nuclear family: a mother and father who are married and cohabiting and their child or children.

    The cultural struggle is for the survival of family values against all manner of atheistic amorality.

  5. 5

    Members of one's family collectively.

    I have a lot of family in Australia.

  6. 6

    A (close-knit) group of people related by blood, friendship, marriage, law, or custom, especially if they live or work together.

    crime family, Mafia family

  7. 7

    slangThe gay community.

  8. 8

    Lineage, especially honorable or noble lineage.

adjective

  1. 1

    Suitable for children and adults.

    It's not good for a date, it's a family restaurant.

  2. 2

    slangHomosexual.

    I knew he was family when I first met him.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate family?

Wiktionary records 3 abbreviations of family: Fam., Fx, fam.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Family in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfamille (immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and…)
GermanFamilie, Sippe, Family (immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and…), Familien- (suitable for children and adults), vom anderen Ufer ((slang) homosexual)
Portuguesefamília (immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and…), de família (suitable for children and adults), familiar ((used attributively))
Spanishfamilia (immediate family [as a group], e.g. parents and…), familiar ((used attributively))

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does family come from?

From Late Middle English famylye, from Latin familia (“a household”). Displaced native Old English hīred and hād. Doublet of familia.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after family