family n.1
1. the criminal fraternity (cite 1844 suggests identification with London underworld only); thus family affair, family matters n., criminal concerns.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Life and Glorious Actions of [...] Jonathan Wilde 13: A Glazier is a Sort of Thieves or House-breakers that [...] take their Opportunity to enter at a Window, and steal away immediately what comes to their Hands, but Plate in particular; or otherwise conceal themselves in the House, till the Family is at rest, then let in a number of Family Fellows, who then plunder as they please. | |
| His Account 6 Aug. 15: This at length made me determine to leave the Family, and change my Companions. | |
| ‘The Oath of the Canting Crew’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 50: No dummerer, or romany; / No member of ‘the Family’. | |
| Sporting Mag. Mar. I 348/2: The depredations of the well-known family, who are eternally preying upon, and dividing the feathers of every pigeon that becomes a victim to their various devices. | |
| letter in Abuses of Justice 111: I have had the gout; and other things in family matters has been the cause of my not seeing you. [Ibid.] 112: The cant phrase of family matters is well understood by thieves and their associates, being used by them when alluding to their thieving concerns. | |
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 206: Family (the) — the whole race of thieves. | |
| Observer 26 May 2: [of pickpockets] The ‘family’ was again at work, gleaning whatever might be left in the pockets of the throng. | |
| Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 100: This house [...] was a favourite resort of ‘the Family’, or, to speak with less reserve, it was a thieves’ house. [Ibid.] 111: My eyes, Jack! why this here cove is one o’ the family. | |
 | Durham Chron. 24 May 3/1: It would seem to be what in flash slang is termed ‘a family affair’— a robbery committed gang of the great fraternity of London thieves. | |
| , | | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 15 June 12/3: ‘Any of the family (thieves) at the old crib?’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Denton (MD) Journal 7 Mar. 3/6: I knew enough of thieves’ slang to know [...] that the ‘family’ was the time honored expression for a gang of thieves. | |
| Tragedy of the White House in Illus. Police News 20 Aug. 12/4: ‘This get-up would be no good among the Family’. | |
| Executioner (1973) 97: That was family money. | |
| Crack War (1991) 171: ‘How many members are there of this . . .’ [...] ‘family [...]’ ‘It’s an army,’ Cobb repeated. ‘About 300 people.’. |
2. a group of girls working in a given brothel.
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Spirit of Irish Wit 229: Two beautiful girls of Peg Plunket’s [a well-known Dublin bawd] family laid siege to his affections . |
3. an intimate, whether related by blood or ties of friendship; usu. in phr. he/she’s family etc.
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Black Talk 31: Relation, relative. ‘He is any family to you?’. | |
| Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 14: (the) family – Your own super ‘in’ crowd. | |
| Patolman 60: [S]he had come to New York with little money and, searching for friends, met up with a female member of a ‘family.’ She was invited to stay at their crash pad, where she met the rest of the members, seventeen men and six women. | |
| Signs of Crime 183: Family Closely related. Used in this sense: ‘Don’t say things like that about Gert, she’s family.’. |
4. the American Mafia; thus attrib.
| I, Mobster 33: Only he didn’t say Mafia – he called it the family. | |
| N.Y. Times 29 Sept. E5: The ruling commission [of Cosa Nostra] has until recently consisted of twelve men, each called the ‘capo’ or ‘boss.’ Each boss is in charge of a ‘family’, the generic name for the operating unit in a specific geographic area. | |
| Hard Candy (1990) 165: They’re the same man. The same family man. | |
| Llama Parlour 209: It was a different sort of family Pierce was currently pre-occupied with. It was a horses-head-in-your-bed-no-kneecaps type family. Pierce owed the local LA drug mafia a lot of money. | |
| (con. 1970s) King Suckerman (1998) 20: The family had asked him to leave Jersey, set up a little business out of town. | |
| At End of Day (2001) 10: Family rule — we do not conduct such business. | |
| ‘Last Call’ in Dirty Words [ebook] ‘Andy, do you know any... accountants for the families and/or crews?’. | |
| ‘She Died with Grace’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] Lisa has never met her uncles. They were lost in the family business—my business, before she was born. | |
| Joey Piss Pot 4: He was on the short list to the hierarchy in the family until one of his own burned him. |
5. (US black) a pimp and the women who work for him.
| Patrolman 196: To show he’s a good sport he takes the whole ‘family’ out for dinner and a night on the town once a year. |
6. (N.Z./US gay) the world of homosexuality.
| Queens’ Vernacular 79: family 1. 2. (adj) trustworthy ‘Go ahead, you can talk in front of Tommy—he’s family’. | |
| Rebecca’s Dict. of Queer Sl. 🌐 family — a code word referring to gays or the gay community, as in, ‘Ellen Degeneres is Family’. | |
| Queer Sl. in the Gay 90s 🌐 Family – Meaning being part of the lesbian and gay community. As in, ‘He’s a member of the family. He’s gay.’. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Gayle. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 70: A number of men interviewed in this project, who were working [as gay male prostitutes] in the middle decades of the twentieth century, spoke about family. |
7. (N.Z. prison) constr. with the, two (or more) close friends.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 67/1: family, the n. 1 two inmates who are very close friends and spend much of their time together 2 (in a women's prison) [...] the women with whom an inmate spends most of her time and is most familiar. |
In compounds
(UK und.) a robber with violence.
| Life and Glorious Actions of [...] Jonathan Wilde 135: Family fellows are such Thieves as are stout and sturdy, and will fight well, when obliged, in the Eexecution of any Robbery. |
a prison.
| in Punch ‘Dear Bill, This Stone-Jug’ 31 Jan. n.p.: In a ward with one’s pals, not locked up in a cell, / To an old hand like me it’s a family hotel. |
1. a member of the criminal fraternity; a thief.
| Sporting Mag. Aug. IV 278/1: Several of the family-men were put into a prodigious panic, on account of a number of horsemen appearing at the inn-door. | |
| Sporting Mag. Aug. XVIII 247/2: The English family-men are so vulgar [...] The foreign sharpers [...] are bred up runners in people of quality’s houses. | |
| Abuses of Justice 91: I set persons to sound what are called family men; but they were wholly ignorant of such a character. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 240: family thieves, sharpers and all others who get their living upon the cross, are comprehended under the title of “The Family”. [Ibid.] family-man, or woman any person known or recognised as belonging to the family; all such are termed family people. | |
| Observer 26 May 2: Not a few ‘family men’ [...] hastened down [to a prizefight] to avail themselves of their professional talents in transferring [...] the propertry of the assembled multitude from the pockets of the right owners to their own. | |
| Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 148: This well-known character in the flash world [...] a ‘family woman’. | |
| Dict. of the Flash or Cant Lang. 163/1: Family men – thieves. Family people – ditto. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 1 Nov. 83/3: It is his [i.e. a London thief] first visit to this country, and he is entirely unknown to any of the the new ‘family’ men here. | |
| Magistrate’s Assistant 444: Thieves: Family-men. | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |
| (con. 1800s) Leeds Times 7 May 6/6: He was sent to the new Clerkenwell prison, where he sent seven week sin very cheerful society [...] first-class ‘family men’ (thieves) and ‘prigs’, [and] ‘toby gills’ (highway men. | |
| Sydney Sl. Dict. 9/2: Sue flimped a soot bag and a prop. She’s the flyest wire in the mob, and all the family men are spoony on her. Sue stole a reticule and a brooch. She’s the smartest lady’s pocket thief in the company (or ‘school ’), and all the thieves are smitten with her. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 27: Famley Men [sic], thieves, burglars, receivers of stolen goods. | |
| Argus (Melbourne) 20 Sept. 6/4: His associates never call him a burglar — it would not be etiquette, They know him as a family man, a ken cracker, a panzy, or a jumper. | |
| Und. Speaks 37/2: Family man, an ex-convict. | |
| Who Live In Shadow (1960) 105: Giacomo Marconi once told on a ‘family man’. | |
| Signs of Crime 183: Family [...] in an ironic sense it means dishonesty generally: ‘He’s a family man’ may mean ‘He’s a thief’ or ‘He is one of us’; in other words, similarly dishonest. |
2. a receiver of stolen goods.
| Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Family Man. [...] A [...] receiver of stolen goods. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| [as sense 1]. |
thieves, robbers.
| Memoirs in McLachlan (1964) 77: My knowledge of life, as it is termed by the knavish part of mankind, and my acquaintance with family people, every day increased. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Family-man, or woman Belonging to the family; i.e. he or she are family people. | |
| ‘Dict. Flash or Cant Lang.’ in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857). | |
| Vulgar Tongue. | |
| , | | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
| Und. Speaks 37/2: Family people, burglars and thieves. |
In phrases
(US black) to indulge in a bout of ritualized name-calling, based on insulting each other’s mother.
| ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1003: Don’t play in de family, Sweet Back. I don’t play de dozens. I done told you. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(US, Western) whisky.
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
see separate entry.
(US) the penis.
| (con. 1920–57) Ozark Folksongs and Folklore II 787: Other common names for the male organ are [...] family organ. |
silver coins.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Und. Speaks 37/2: Family plate, money. |
a family grave.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
(W.I.) an incestuous male; a man who sleeps with two or more female members of the same family.
| Countryman Karl Black 149: A ‘familyram’ and two sisters stopped. | |
| Official Dancehall Dict. 19: Family-ram (derog.) incestous males; any male who indulges in any incestuous relationship or sleeps with more than one female from the same family. |
(US prison) describing a face-to-face style of anal intercourse, where the passive partner’s legs are thrown over the head.
| (ref. to mid-1960s) Queens’ Vernacular 89: laying with legs thrown over the head [...] family style (mid ’60s, fr standard heterosexual position). | |
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Family Style: Performing sodomy in the ‘missionary’ position. |
In phrases
prostitutes, considered as a group or occupation.
| Whores Rhetorick 75: These by-places, these dark Conventicles, for the entertainment of the family of Love, are moreover extream necessary. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Family of love Lewd Women, Whores. | |
| New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | |
| , , , | | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |