one big happy family
14
3.4
- idiom
- Informal
:
gran familia
- We'll live together, one big happy family.
- just one big happy family
- all one big happy family
- one big happy family again
You want them to be like one big happy family, and you have to work at that.
- You want them to be like one big happy family, and you have to work at that.
Examples
-
Well... aren't we just one big happy family?
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Despite their differences, the team members worked together harmoniously as if they were one big happy family.
-
You want them to be like one big happy family, and you have to work at that.
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...that we were all one big happy family.
-
We're all just one big happy family here.
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I thought we could all go as one big happy family.
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We're all one big, happy family.
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We have a lot of employees, but we're one big, happy family.
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We were all one big happy family back then.
Blog text (20) -
Well, now that we're one big happy family again, what's our status?
Synonyms
∞
2.4
People who act together for a common purpose, for example a company or a crime group
28
1.3
People who like each other and spend time together
Antonyms
How Close
- Informal
14
3.4
3
3.5
28
1.3
3
3.9
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a group of people who have close, friendly relationships' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'one' (a single/unified group), 'big' (large/extended) and 'happy' (friendly/content) with 'family'. This straightforward adjectival composition follows regular English patterns and similar metaphors exist cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
The phrase one big happy family makes you imagine many people together as a single loving family, with the words one, big, happy, family showing that picture. That's why it is used to say a group is 'close and friendly'.