familiar 
2. A familiar spirit ; a demon or evil spirit 
supposed to attend at call. See familial- sjiirit. 
under I. 
Away with him : he has a familiar under his tongue. 
Shak., 2 Hen. VI., iv. 7. 
You may have, as you come through Germany, A famil- 
iar for little or nothing, shall turn itself into the shape of 
your dog. B. Jam-on, Every Man out of Ms Humour, v. 4. 
I have heard old beldams 
Talk of familiars in tlic shape of mice, 
Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, 
That have appear'd, and suck'd. some say, their blood. 
Ford and Dekker, Witch of Edmonton, ii. 1. 
3. In the Rom. Cath. Ch., a member of the 
household of the pope or of a bishop, support- 
ed at his expense, and rendering him domestic, 
though not menial service. The familiar must 
live in the diocese of his superior. 4. An of- 
ficer of the Tribunal of the Inquisition who ar- 
rested persons accused or suspected. See inqui- 
sii'on. 
The proudest nobles of the land held it an honour to 
serve ta familiar* of the Holy Office. Prescott. 
familiarisation, familiarise. See familiariza- 
tion, familiarize. 
familiarity (fa-mil-i-ar'i-ti), n. ; pi. familiari- 
ties (-tiz). [< JIE. familarite, < OF.familiarite, 
P. familiarite = Pr. familiaritat = Sp. familia- 
ritiad = Pg. familiaridade = It. familiaritd = 
G. familiaritat, < L. familiarita(t-)s, intimacy, 
friendship, (familiaris, familiar: see familiar.] 
1. The state of being familiar, in any sense 
of that word ; intimate knowledge ; close or 
habitual acquaintance; free or unrestrained 
intercourse : followed by with before an object. 
I doubt I shall find the entrance to Mafamiliarity some- 
what more than difficult. B. Jonyon, Poetaster, lii. 1. 
I think nothing which is a phrase or saying in common 
talk should be admitted into a serious poem ; because it 
t;ikr- off from the solemnity of the expression, and gives 
it too great a turn at familiarity. 
Addison, On Virgil's Georgics. 
Again, let me tell you, Madam, Familiarity breeds Con- 
tempt : You'll never leave till you have made me saucy. 
Wycherley, Love in a Wood, iv. 
Familiarity in inferiors is sauciuess ; in superiors, con- 
descension ; neither of which are to have being among 
companions, the very word implying that they are to be 
equal. Steele, Tatler, No. 225. 
That long .familiarity whereby a singer's audience be- 
comes somewhat weary of his notes. 
Stedtnan, Viet. Poets, p. 151. 
2. An unusual liberty in act or speech from 
one person toward another ; a freedom of con- 
duct justified only by the most intimate rela- 
tions, or exercised without warrant ; an act of 
personal license, in either a good or a bad 
sense: most frequently in the plural: as, the 
familiarities of intimate friendship; bis famili- 
arities were repulsive. 3. In astral., any kind 
of aspect or reception. = gyn. 1. Acquaintance, etc. 
(see acquaintance), familiar knowledge, fellowship, friend- 
ship, sociability. See list under a/ability. 
familiarization (fa-mil''ya-ri-za'shgn), . [< 
familiarize + -atlon."] The act or process of 
making or becoming familiar, or the state of 
being familiar. Also spelled familiarisation. 
There can be no question that a constant familiarisa- 
tion with such scenes blunts the feelings, if it does not 
harden the heart. T. Hook, Gilbert Gurney, II. I. 
familiarize (fa-mil'ya-riz), v. t. ; pret. and pp. 
familiarized, ppr. familiarizing. [< F.familia- 
riser = Sp. Pg. familiarizar = It. familiarizzare; 
as familiar + -fee.] 1. To make familiar or 
intimate ; render conversant by customary use, 
experience, or intercourse ; acquaint closely : 
as, to familiarize one's self with scenes of dis- 
tress. 
King Bogoris hoped to familiarise men's minds with 
the tenets of the gospel. Milman, Latin Christianity, v. 8. 
In order that men should believe in witches, their in- 
tellects must have been familiarised with the conceptions 
of Satanic power and Satanic presence. 
LecTty, Rationalism, I. 81. 
These strange woes stole on tiptoe, as it were, 
Into my neighborhood and privacy, 
Sat down where I sat, laid them where I lay; 
And I was found familiarized with fear. 
Browning, King and Book, II, 11. 
2. To accustom familiarly, as to the sight, 
knowledge, or practice of something; habitu- 
ate ; inure. [Now rare.] 
Being familiarized to it, men are not shocked at it. 
Butler. 
3f. To make familiar in manner; cause to act 
or be exercised familiarly or affably. 
For the cure of this particular sort of madness, it will 
be necessary to break through all forms with him, and 
familiarize his carriage by the use of a good cudgel. 
Steele, Tatler, No. 127. 
2133 
4. To make familiar in regard or experience ; 
make well known ; cause to be intimately con- 
sidered or customary. 
Wethamstede, the learned and liberal abbot of St. Al- 
bans, being desirous of familiarising the history of his 
patron saint to the monks of his convent. 
T. Warton, Hist. Bug. Poetry, II. 53. 
The genius smiled on me with a look of compassion 
and affability Hint familiarized him to my imagination. 
Addison, Spectator. 
Also spelled familiarise. 
familiarly (fa-mil'yar-li), adv. In a familiar 
manner; unceremoniously; without constraint 
or formality ; with the ease and unconcern that 
arise from long custom or acquaintance. 
He salutes me as familiarly as if we had known together 
since the deluge, or the first year of Troy action. 
B. Jonson, Cynthia's Revels, iv. 1. 
They'll come to me familiarly, 
And eat up all I have; drink up my wine too. 
Fletcher, Pilgrim, iv. 2. 
familiarness (fa-mil'yar-nes), n. Familiarity. 
Let not the familiarness or frequency of such provi- 
dences cause them to be neglected by us, to improve them 
as God would have us, to fear before him. 
A'. Morton, New England's Memorial, p. 320. 
familiaryt (fa-mil'i-a-ri), a. [< L. familiaris, 
in lit. sense belonging to a family : see famil- 
iar."} Pertaining to a family or household ; do- 
mestic. 
Yet it pleas'd God ... to make him the beginner of a 
reformation to this whole kingdom, by first asserting into 
liisifamUiary power the right of just divorce. 
Milton, Divorce, ii. 21. 
familism (fam'i-lizm), n. [< L. familia, fam- 
ily, + -ism.'] 1. The religious doctrines and 
practices of the Familists. See Familist, 1. 
Antiuomianism, as both experience and the nature of 
the thing has sufficiently taught us, seldom ends but in 
familism. South, Works, V. iii. 
2. The tendency to live in families; that sys- 
tem of society which is founded on the family. 
Familism, the love of those nearest and dearest, loses 
its excluding character. 
R. T. Ely, French and German Socialism, p. 99. 
Familist(fam'i-list),n. [= F.familliste,< "L. fa- 
milia, family, + -ist.] 1. One of the religious 
sect called the Family of Love, founded in Hol- 
land and England in the sixteenth century by 
Hans Niklas, or Nicholas, who was a disciple 
of David Joris (see Davidist, 2), and taught 
mystical doctrines based upon the theory that 
religion consists wholly in love independently 
of the form of faith. To them Moses was the prophet 
of hope, Christ the prophet of faith, and Hans Nicholas 
the prophet of love. The sect was prohibited by Queen 
Elizabeth in 1580, but existed till the middle of the next 
century. 
The primitive Christians in their times were accounted 
such as are now call'd Familists and Adamites, or worse. 
Milton, Church-Government, i. 6. 
2. [/. c.~\ The head of a family ; a family man. 
[Rare.] 
If you will needs be a familist and marry, muster not 
the want of issue among your greatest afflictions. 
Osborne, Advice to a Son. 
familistere (fa-me-les-tar'), . [F., <familliste, 
in lit. sense one of a family: see Familist.] A 
community of Fourierist or other communists 
living together as one family ; the building in 
which such persons live ; a phalanstery. 
In 1859 Godin put up a large building called the fanii- 
listere, for the accommodation of 300 families, adding a 
theater, school-house, etc. Sci. Amer. Supp., p. 8761. 
It [Guise in France] has an old castle dating from the 
16th century and a palatial familistere with accommoda- 
tion for 400 families. Encyc. Brit., XI. 265. 
familistery (fam-i-lis'te-ri), n.; pi. familisteries 
(-TIZ). Same as familistere. 
familistic, familistical (fam-i-lis'tik, -ti-kal), 
a. [<.familist + -ic-al.'] Pertaining to the Fam- 
ilists or to familism. 
And such are, for ought that ever I could discern, those 
Seraphick, Anabaptistick, and Familistick Hyperboles, 
those proud swelling words of vanity and novelty, with 
which those men use to deceive the simple and credulous 
sort of people. Bp. Oauden, Tears of the Church, p. 195. 
About this time there arose great troubles in the coun- 
try, especially at Boston, by the breathing of antinomian 
andfamilistical opinions. 
A". Morton, New England's Memorial, p. 198. 
family (fam'i-li), n. and a. [Early mod. E. fam- 
ilie (not in ME.) = D. G. Dan. familie = F. fa- 
mille = Pr. familia = Sp. Pg. familia = It.fami- 
glia = Sw. familj, < L. familia, the servants in 
a household, a household establishment, the 
domestics collectively; hence the household, 
the estate, property, rarely in the later and 
mod. sense of family (parents and children), 
for which L. donms was used, (.famulus, a ser- 
vant, OL. famul, < Oacsm famel, a servant, prob. 
< Oscan faama, a house, perhaps akin to Skt. 
family 
dhdman, an abode, house, < i/ dlid, set, place, 
= Gr. rt-Be-vat = E. do 1 : see do 1 , and cf. fact.] 
1. n.; pi. families (-liz). 1. The collective body 
of persons who form one household under one 
head and one domestic government, including 
parents, children, and servants, and as some- 
times used even lodgers or boarders, in law ims- 
band and wife living together, and having no children, 
are sometimes deemed within the benefit of a statute as to 
families. 
Rod. Signior, is all your family within? 
lago. Are your doors locked? Shak., Othello, i. 1. 
Pie. Is your worship of the family 
Unto the Lady Pecunia ? 
Bro. I serve her grace, sir. 
. Jonson, Staple of News, il. 1. 
The two societies, Roman and Hindoo, . . . are seen to be 
formed, at what for practical purposes is the earliest stage 
of their history, by the multiplication of a particular unit 
or group, the Patriarchal Family. . . . The group consists 
of animate and inanimate property, of wife, children, 
slaves, land, and goods, all held together by subjection 
to the despotic authority of the eldest male of the eldest 
ascending line, the father, the grandfather, or even more 
remote ancestor. 
Maine, Early Hist, of Institutions, p. 310. 
Families are the unity of which society is composed, as 
tissue is made of cells, and matter of molecules. 
J. F. Clarke, Self-Culture, p. 225. 
2. Parents with their children, whether they 
dwell together or not ; in a more general sense, 
any group of persons closely related by blood, 
as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins : 
often used in a restricted sense only of a group 
of parents and children founded upon the prin- 
ciple of monogamy. 
Either his uncle, or his uncle's son, ... or any that is 
nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him. 
Lev. xxv. 49. 
Come they of noble family ? 
Why, so didst thou. Shak., Hen. V., ii. 2. 
3. In a narrow use, the children of the same 
parents, considered collectively apart from the 
parents: as, they (a husband and wife) have a 
large family to care for; a, family of children. 
[In all the above uses, frequently used figura- 
tively with regard to animals.] 
Seldom at church ('twas such a busy life), 
But duly sent his/at% and wife. 
Pope, Moral Essays, iii. 382. 
4. In the most general sense, those who de- 
scend from a common progenitor ; a tribe or 
race; kindred; lineage. Thus, the Israelites were 
a branch of the family of Abraham ; the whole human 
race constitutes the human family. 
Hence 5. Any group or aggregation of things 
classed together as kindred or related from pos- 
sessing in common characteristics which dis- 
tinguish them from other things of the same 
order. Thus, a body of languages regarded as represen- 
tatives of a common ancestor, or as having come by grad- 
ual processes of alteration and divarication from the same 
original tongue, is called a family : as, the Indo-European 
family; the South African family. 
There be two great families of things, sulphureous and 
mercurial. Bacon, Nat. Hist. 
The states of Europe were, hy the prevailing maxims of 
its policy, closely united in one family. Everett. 
Specifically 6. In scientific classifications, a 
group of individuals more comprehensive than 
a genus and less so than an order, based on 
fewer or less definite points of physical resem- 
blance than the former, and on more or more 
definite ones than the latter, in zoology the name 
of a family now almost invariably ends in -idee, which has 
the force of a patronymic. The prime divisions of a family 
are termed subfamilies, and end usually in -ince. The prime 
associationsof families are in some refinements of class! I' ca- 
tion called superfamilus ; there is no obvious distinction, 
however, between these and suborders. The recognition 
and definition of the family, as of other zoological groups, 
is entirely a matter of expert opinion, having no natural 
necessity for being; hence the wide difference among zo- 
ologists in their evaluation of the term. A modern family 
is usually less comprehensive than a genus as used in the 
last century. The use of the regular termination -idee has 
done much to fix the valuation of the family more stably 
than that of either the genus or the order. Zoological fami- 
lies are considered as being approximately of the same 
grade in classification as the groups called orders in botany. 
Hence the word family is generally used by botanists as a 
synonym of order: as, order Ranunculaceoe, the crowfoot 
family. In cryptogamic botany the family is the prime 
division of the order or suborder, and the prime division of 
the family is the subfamily or tribe ; but in some classifica- 
tions the family is made to rank next below the tribe. The 
absolute rank of the family also varies with different au- 
thors, the family of one being the order of another, etc. 
The usual termination is -ece (or -ei), but -aeta (or -acei) is 
used as a family termination in some cases. See classifi- 
cation. 
7. Course of descent; genealogy. 
Go ! if your ancient, but ignoble blood 
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, 
Go ! and pretend your family is young ; 
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. 
Pope, Essay on Man, iv. 213. 
