Family refers to a group of people who are closely related to one another (by blood, marriage or adoption); kin; for example, a set of parents and their children; an immediate family. It commonly describes an extended family; a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage, a (close-knit) group of people related by blood, friendship, marriage, law, or custom, especially if they live or work together, and lineage, especially an honorable one, which gives the term a broader and more practical sense than a single short definition would suggest. Depending on context, it can also point to a rank in the classification of organisms, below order and above genus; a taxon at that rank, any 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, and a group of instruments having the same basic method of tone production, so the category can cover literal uses, related ideas, and more figurative extensions of the same core meaning. Taken together, these meanings present Family as a flexible theme rather than a narrowly technical label, covering the central idea people usually mean when they use the word while still leaving room for closely related senses that appear in real language.
