familia

American  

[fuh-mil-ee-uh, fuh-mil-yuh, -meel-] / fəˈmɪl i ə, fəˈmɪl jə, -ˈmil- /

noun

familiae plural

1. a group of people who are socially connected because they share an occupation or a special undertaking, such as being in a film crew or activist movement.

2. a Sicilian mafia family.

3. Roman History. a household or extended family under a patriarch or paterfamilias, including adoptees and slaves.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• familiae
  plural

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

familia familiae

A team of gladiators was called a familia and was trained in a gladiatorial school by a lanista, the manager of the group.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

Huerta says that despite the obstacles of time and location, their sense of familia helped make the process easier, even in front of a live audience.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2022

Ms. Flores’ campaign signs do not mention policy or party, but instead highlight three words: “Dios, familia, patria.”

From New York Times ● Feb. 28, 2022

Her “want” is to have a power like everyone else in her gifted familia.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 23, 2021

“You can’t go against your own ...” Yet, my so-called familia, my so-called people, had put me in the worst position of my life.

From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers

It may also conveniently be compared with the evidence given by the same visitations as to the system of familiae in these houses.

From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Power, Eileen

Ferrero assumes that these words were to be taken as representing the families of all worshippers present, who would repeat the words "mihi domo familiae."

From The Religious Experience of the Roman People From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus by Fowler, W. Warde

But within this boundary line, of which we shall hear something more presently, how were the component parts, the familiae of the gens, settled down on the land?

From The Religious Experience of the Roman People From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus by Fowler, W. Warde

No great success could attend these efforts; the abnormal circumstances which had brought to Rome the great familiae of slaves reacted inevitably upon the citizen body itself through the process of manumission.

From Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero by Fowler, W. Warde

Here, as in the enclosure struggle and the struggle against familiae, they were forced into compromise at best and at worst into acquiescence.

From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Power, Eileen