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Glite Dictionary
all in the family

all in the family

1 5.0
Only members of the same family own or run it, for example a family business
  • idiom
translation icon : todo en familia
  • And we like to keep it all in the family.

And once again, it's all in the family.

Examples

  • We decided to keep the business all in the family to maintain a personal touch.

  • It's all in the family.

    After the Thin Man (1936)

  • That's nice, keeping it all in the family.

    Trinket Box (2023)

  • When planning the reunion, we agreed to keep everything all in the family.

  • Our family gathering was all in the family, with only relatives invited.

Antonyms

public
∞ 1.0

Open or available to everyone, not private

Surface Forms

all in the family main

Morphology

all + in + the + family

The meaning 'restricted to or involving only family members' is directly derivable from the constituents: 'all' (the whole), 'in' (within), and 'the family' (the family group). This is a straightforward compositional noun phrase pattern common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the words should be able to infer the MWE meaning (aside from any specific pragmatic nuance like nepotism).

Etymology

The phrase all in the family may come from the simple image of a family shop or farm that stayed with relatives and was never sold to outsiders, where everything was kept in the family. So, it now means 'kept within the family' or 'only involving family members'.