FAMILY UNIT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does family unit mean? 

• FAMILY UNIT (noun)
  The noun FAMILY UNIT has 1 sense:

1. primary social group; parents and children

  Familiarity information: FAMILY UNIT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FAMILY UNIT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Primary social group; parents and children

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

family; family unit

Context example:

he wanted to have a good job before starting a family

Hypernyms ("family unit" is a kind of...):

clan; kin; kin group; kindred; kinship group; tribe (group of people related by blood or marriage)

Meronyms (members of "family unit"):

child; kid (a human offspring (son or daughter) of any age)

parent (a father or mother; one who begets or one who gives birth to or nurtures and raises a child; a relative who plays the role of guardian)

sib; sibling (a person's brother or sister)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "family unit"):

couple; match; mates (a pair of people who live together)

man and wife; marriage; married couple (two people who are married to each other)

Instance hyponyms:

Bronte sisters (a 19th century family of three sisters who all wrote novels)

Marx Brothers (a family of United States comedians consisting of four brothers with an anarchic sense of humor)

 Context examples 

The social institution involving legal and/or religious sanction whereby men and women are joined together for the purpose of founding a family unit; the state of being a married couple.

(Marriage, NCI Thesaurus)