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

Jones is equally adept at the delicate prose, as in this description of a well-worn family Bible: “The paper, thin as butterfly wings, was heavy with wisdom.”

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 24, 2026

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

“I took the oath of office — lifted my hand off our family Bible — and inherited a nation in crisis,” Biden said.

From Washington Post • Apr. 28, 2021

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

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