family Bible

American  

noun

1. a large Bible usually having pages at the front for recording the marriages, births, and deaths in a family.

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family Bible British  

noun

1. a large Bible used for family worship in which births, marriages, and deaths are recorded

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Etymology

Origin of family Bible

First recorded in 1775–85

Example Sentences

Former Vice President Mike Pence often talks of how he “joined the Reagan revolution and never looked back,” and took his oath with his hand on the Reagan family Bible.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 26, 2023

With a crucial feature called “shift timing,” the machine was about the size of a family Bible and allowed the producer to program in human-style inconsistencies measure by measure.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 25, 2022

A great-uncle shared with him a family Bible that had belonged to his own great-grandmother, who was born into slavery in 1865, just before Emancipation.

From New York Times • Feb. 26, 2021

In fact, three were used in the swearing-in ceremonies – Kamala Harris used both Thurgood Marshall's and one belonging to a friend; Joseph Biden used a 128-year-old family Bible.

From Salon • Jan. 23, 2021

Chipper had, after all, eaten the family Bible the winter before, chewed right through it from Genesis to Revelation, shredding generations of inscribed Hickams in the process.

From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam