different between descendant vs family

English

Etymology

From Middle English dessendaunte, borrowed from Middle French, from Latin d?scend?ns, present participle of descendere, from d? + scandere (“to climb, ascend”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??s?nd?nt/
• Hyphenation: des?cen?dant

Adjective

descendant (not comparable)

1. descending from a biological ancestor.
2. proceeding from a figurative ancestor or source.

Usage notes

The adjective may be spelled either with ant or ent as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ant.

Alternative forms

• descendent

Antonyms

• ascendant, ascendent, ascending

Related terms

• descendancy

Noun

descendant (plural descendants)

1. One who is the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.

   The patriarch survived many descendants: five children, a dozen grandchildren, even a great grandchild.

2. (figuratively) A thing that derives directly from a given precursor or source.

   This famous medieval manuscript has many descendants.

3. (biology) A later evolutionary type.

   Dogs evolved as descendants of early wolves.

4. (linguistics) A language that is descended from another.

   English and Scots are the descendants of Old English.

5. (linguistics) A word or form in one language that is descended from a counterpart in an ancestor language.
   • 1993, Jens Elmegård Rasmussen, “The Slavic i-verbs with an excursus on the Indo-European ?-verbs”, in Bela Brogyanyi and Reiner Lipp (editors), Comparative-Historical Linguistics, John Benjamins Publishing, ?ISBN, page 479:

   Synonyms: reflex, derivative

   Antonym: etymon

   Coordinate term: cognate

Usage notes

The adjective may be spelled either with ant or ent as the final syllable (see descendent). The noun may be spelled only with ant.

Synonyms

• (offspring): afterbear, offspring, scion, and see Thesaurus:child & relative

Antonyms

• ascendant
• ancestor
• forebear

Derived terms

• direct descendant
• indirect descendant

Translations

See also

• offspring
• offshoot
• progeny

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin d?scend?ns, d?scend?ntem, the present participle of descendere, itself from d? + scandere (“climb, ascend”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /de.s??.d??/

Verb

descendant

1. present participle of descendre
2. (preceded by en) gerund of descendre

Noun

descendant m (plural descendants, feminine descendante)

1. A descendant; one who is the progeny of someone at any distance of time; e.g. a child; a grandchild, etc.

Antonyms

• ancêtre m
• ascendant m

Adjective

descendant (feminine singular descendante, masculine plural descendants, feminine plural descendantes)

1. (which is) descending.

Antonyms

• ascendant
• montant

Derived terms

• compatibilité descendante

Related terms

• descendance
• descendre

Further reading

• “descendant” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Latin

Verb

d?scendant

1. third-person plural present active subjunctive of d?scend?

See Wiktionary:Families for a guide to language families within Wiktionary

English

Etymology

From Early Modern English familie (not in Middle English), from Latin familia (“the servants in a household, domestics collectively”), from famulus (“servant”) or famula (“female servant”), from Old Latin famul, of obscure origin. Perhaps derived from or cognate to Oscan famel (“servant”). Doublet of familia. Displaced native Old English h?red.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?fæm(?)li/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?fæm(?)li/, /?fæm?li/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?f?m(?)li/
• Hyphenation: fa?mi?ly, fam?ily

Noun

family (countable and uncountable, plural families)

1. (countable) 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.
2. (countable) An extended family; a group of people who are related to one another by blood or marriage.
   • 1915, William T. Groves, A History and Genealogy of the Groves Family in America
3. (countable) Synonym of family member (an individual who belongs to one's family).

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

5. (uncountable, taxonomy) lineage, especially an honorable one
   • 1853, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, ch 2:

     Indeed, he married her for love. A whisper still goes about that she had not even 'family'; howbeit, Sir Leicester had so much family that perhaps he had enough and could dispense with any more.

6. (countable, biology, taxonomy) A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below order and above genus; a taxon at that rank.

   Synonym: familia

7. (countable) 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.
   • 2010, Gary Shelly, Jennifer Campbell, Ollie Rivers, Microsoft Expression Web 3: Complete (page 262)

     When creating a font family, first decide whether to use all serif or all sans-serif fonts, then choose two or three fonts of that type […]

8. (set theory, countable) A collection of sets, especially of subsets of a given set.

9. (countable, music) A group of instruments having the same basic method of tone production.

10. (countable, linguistics) A group of languages believed to have descended from the same ancestral language.

11. Used attributively.

Usage notes

• In some dialects, family is used as a plural (only) noun.

Synonyms

• (relatives): flesh and blood, kin, kinfolk
• (class): Thesaurus:class

Hyponyms

• (relatives): nuclear family, immediate family, extended family
• (computing): C family

Descendants

• Jamaican Creole: faambli, fambili
• Tok Pisin: famili
• ? Chuukese: famini
• ? Malay: famili
• ? Maori: wh?mere

Translations

Adjective

family (not comparable)

1. Suitable for children and adults.

2. Conservative, traditional.

3. (slang) Homosexual.

Translations

Derived terms

Related terms

See also

• Category:Family
• (taxonomy, rank):

• domain
• kingdom
• phylum/division
• class
• order
• superfamily
• family
  • subfamily, tribe
• genus
• species

Further reading

• family on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Family (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Family of sets on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Family (biology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• family at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “family”, in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary, (Please provide a date or year).
• “family” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• family in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• "family" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 1.
• family in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• family in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.