Link Centre Dictionary

familial

fa·mi·lial

US/fəˈmɪljəl/ uncommon

adjective

1.

relating to or having the characteristics of a family

  • “children of the same familial background”
  • “familial aggregation”
2.

tending to occur among members of a family usually by heredity

  • “an inherited disease”
  • “familial traits”
  • “genetically transmitted features”
Synonyms
Similar

Origin

From French familial (“relating to a family; familial”), from Latin familia (“family (in the sense of the slaves working for a household); household”) (from famulus (“servant; slave”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁-m-eló-, from *dʰeh₁- (“to do, place, put”)) + French -al (adjective-forming suffix) (from Latin -ālis, from Proto-Indo-European *-li-). By surface analysis, family + -al. Piecewise doublet of familiar.

Phrases

  • familial British dementia
  • familial DNA
  • familial Mediterranean fever
  • fatal familial insomnia

Related words

Word family

Pertaining to

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.