different between family vs variety

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.

English

Alternative forms

• variëty (rare)

Etymology

From Middle French varieté, from Latin variet?s (“difference, diversity”), from varius (“different, various”); see various. Displaced native Old English misl?cnes.

Pronunciation

• enPR: v?-r???-t?, IPA^(key): /v???a?.?.ti/
• Rhymes: -a??ti
• Hyphenation: va?ri?e?ty

Noun

variety (countable and uncountable, plural varieties)

1. The quality of being varied; diversity.

   Antonym: sameness

2. A specific variation of something.
3. A number of different things.

   Synonyms: array, assortment

4. A state of constant change.
5. (taxonomy) A rank in a taxonomic classification, below species (infraspecific), either below subspecies (subspecific) or ranked comparably therewith.
6. (cybernetics) The total number of distinct states of a system.
7. (cybernetics) Logarithm of the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system.
8. (linguistics) A term used for a specific form of a language, neutral to whether that form is a dialect, accent, register, etc. and to its prestige level.
9. (algebra, universal algebra) An equational class; the class of all algebraic structures of a given signature, satisfying a given set of identities.
10. (algebraic geometry) An algebraic variety.
11. The kind of theatrical entertainment given in variety shows.
12. The production of, or performance in, variety shows.

Synonyms

• (quality of being varied): See also Thesaurus:nonuniformity
• (algebraic geometry): algebraic variety
• (universal algebra): equational class, equational variety, variety of algebras

Hyponyms

• (specific variation of something): cultivar

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

See also

• species
• (cybernetics: logarithm): information entropy

Further reading

• variety in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• variety in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.