family

英 ['fæmɪlɪ; -m(ə)l-]美 ['fæməli]
  • n. 家庭；亲属；家族；子女；[生]科；语族；[化]族
  • adj. 家庭的；家族的；适合于全家的
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中文词源

family 家庭

来自拉丁语famulus, 仆人，家仆。原义为带仆人的大家庭或家族。进一步来自PIE*dhe, 做，建立，词源同do, fact.后词义通用化，也用于指三口之家的小家等。

英文词源

family
family: [15] Latin famulus, a word of unknown origin, meant ‘servant’. From it was derived familia, a collective term for all the domestic servants of a household. Only rarely was it used for the entire household, including the servants’ employers too, and when it first entered English it was with the original Latin sense (which indeed survived until the late 18th century). Gradually, however, the English word broadened out to ‘whole household’, and then in the mid- 17th century narrowed down again to the current main sense ‘group of related people’.
=> familiar
family (n.)
early 15c., "servants of a household," from Latin familia "family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household," thus also "members of a household, the estate, property; the household, including relatives and servants," from famulus "servant, slave," which is of unknown origin.

The Latin word rarely appears in the sense "parents with their children," for which domus (see domestic (adj.)) was used. Derivatives of famulus include famula "serving woman, maid," famulanter "in the manner of a servant," famulitas "servitude," familiaris "of one's household, private," familiaricus "of household slaves," familiaritas "close friendship."

In English, sense of "collective body of persons who form one household under one head and one domestic government, including parents, children, and servants, and as sometimes used even lodgers or boarders" [Century Dictionary] is from 1540s. From 1660s as "parents with their children, whether they dwell together or not," also in a more general sense, "persons closely related by blood, including aunts, uncles, cousins;" earlier "those who descend from a common progenitor, a house, a lineage" (1580s). Hence, "any group of things classed as kindred based on common distinguishing characteristics" (1620s); as a scientific classification, between genus and order, from 1753.
I have certainly known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots. [William Butler Yeats, "Autobiography"]
Replaced Old English hiwscipe, hiwan "family," cognate with Old Norse hjon "one of the household; married couple, man and wife; domestic servant," and with Old High German hiwo "husband," hiwa "wife," also with Lithuanian šeimyna "family," Gothic haims "village," Old English ham "village, home" (see home (n.)).

As an adjective from c. 1600; with the meaning "suitable for a family," by 1807. Family values first recorded 1966. Phrase in a family way "pregnant" is from 1796. Family circle is 1809; family man "man devoted to wife and children, man inclined to lead a domestic life" is 1856 (earlier it meant "thief," 1788, from family in a slang sense of "the fraternity of thieves"). Family-tree "graph of ancestral relations" attested from 1752:
He was dressed in his best Coat, which had served him in the same Capacity before my Birth, and possibly, might be but little short in Antiquity, to the Root of his third Family Tree; and indeed, he made a venerable Figure in it. ["A Genuine Account of the Life and Transactions of Howell ap David Price, Gentleman of Wales," London, 1752]


Happy family an assemblage of animals of diverse habits and propensities living amicably, or at least quietly, together in one cage. [Century Dictionary, 1902]
The phrase is attested from 1844.

双语例句

1. The family was often in flight, hiding out in friends' houses.
这一家人常常东躲西藏，在朋友家里避风头。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Each family farms individually and reaps the benefit of its labor.
各家经营各自的农场，收获各自的劳动成果。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Ah yes, but think of all the family life they're missing.
是这样，不过别忘了他们错过了多少天伦之乐。
来自柯林斯例句
4. Sonia, we are reliably informed, loves her family very much.
我们从可靠的消息来源获知索尼娅非常爱自己的家人。
来自柯林斯例句
5. We encountered the pathetic sight of a family packing up its home.
我们目睹了一家人正在收拾家当准备离开的凄惨景象。
来自柯林斯例句