nuclear family
14
2.1
- noun
- /ˈnjuːklɪər ˈfæmɪli/
:
familia nuclear
- What can any of us know of a fully functional nuclear family?
- nuclear family household
- nuclear family unit
- traditional nuclear family
And I think the nuclear family works.
- And I think the nuclear family works.
- And don't forget, we didn't evolve in nuclear families.
- You know, animals on television, you know, tend to have nice nuclear family setups.
- Are they really a nuclear family?
- There might be societal costs that we were borne out by not strengthening the nuclear family.
- And our species, we evolved over time, nuclear families in which men were more involved in childcare anyway.
- You know, in terms of traditional nuclear families.
- They are leading to chaos to destroy the nuclear family.
- And I said on a Black Lives Matter website, their stated aim is to destroy the nuclear family.
- BLM hates America, it hates the West, it hates everything generally that you and I hold to be precious like the nuclear family.
- You know, the Kennedys, the Cuomo's, they enable each other across generations and across, you know, family, nuclear family lines.
Examples
-
In fact, in this school, it's the nuclear families who are unusual.
Fiction book (1991) -
The magazine states that the nuclear family, the legal family, is the sound basis of the legal state.
Academic text (1990) -
That idea of a nuclear family is not common there.
-
Children were raised in communities, without the nuclear family structure that is so popular here.
-
Welcome to my nuclear family.
-
Over time, nuclear family households become smaller as children grow and leave the homestead.
Academic text (1994) -
Enjoy your nuclear family.
-
Like most popular media of the decade, comics placed an emphasis on domesticity and the nuclear family.
Academic text (2013) -
The Perez family is a nuclear family in which the traditional sexual roles are inverted.
Academic text (1991) -
Many people believe that a nuclear family consists of two parents and their children living together.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
People who live together in one home, usually parents and their children
501
1.0
The people who live together in one home, often a family
21
1.8
A group of parents and their children who live together
Antonyms
48
2.7
A group of related people including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'parents and their children' follows from combining 'nuclear' (core/central) with 'family' (household), so the relation is partly compositional. However, 'nuclear' is polysemous (often associated with atoms or bombs) and the phrase is a conventional sociological term, so a B1 learner may not fully predict the exact demographic meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Nuclear family may come from the picture of a small, central 'core', like the center of a seed or the center of an atom. Here nuclear suggests a tight centre and family is the group of parents and children. That's why it now means a simple family made of just the parents and their children.