- Family
- (1) A group of individuals related by blood or marriage or by a feeling of closeness. (2) A biological classification of related plants or animals that is a division below the order and above the genus. (3) A group of genes related in structure and in function that descended from an ancestral gene. (4) Parents and their children. The most fundamental social group in humans.
* * *1. A group of two or more persons united by blood, adoptive, or marital ties, or the common law equivalent. 2. In biologic classification, a taxonomic grouping at the level intermediate between the order and the tribe or genus. 3. A group of substances closely related structurally. 4. A group of proteins with characteristic sequence, pharmacologic, and/or signaling profiles. [L. familia]- alu-equivalent f. a set of sequences in a mammalian genome that is related to the human Alu f..- cancer f. a group of blood relative s of whom several have had cancer; the mode of aggregation may be genetic and homogeneous, as in familial polyposis of the colon; diverse as in neurofibromatosis; or due to common exposure to a carcinogenic or oncogenic agent, such as a virus.- extended f. a group of persons comprising members of several generations united by blood, adoptive, marital, or equivalent ties.
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1) the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children also any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family <a single-parent \family>2) a group of related plants or animals forming a category ranking above a genus and below an order and usu. comprising several to many generafamily adj* * *
fam·I·ly (famґĭ-le) 1. a group of individuals descended from a common ancestor. 2. a taxonomic subdivision subordinate to an order (or suborder) and superior to a tribe (or subfamily). 3. a group of related objects or individuals of any kind.
Medical dictionary. 2011.
