Merriam-Webster’s editors seem to limit it to relatives outside the non-nuclear group, but living in the same household.
The Wiki on it indicates that it can also mean grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., not necessarily living under the same roof.
And neither of those are the way I’ve used it. To me, those are just “family.” To me, “extended family” are the in-laws, cousins of cousins, etc., that I’m not directly related to by blood, marriage, or adoption–but they and I have some common family. I might be the only person who looks at the term in this way.
I have a small family: mom, dad, sister, dog (yes, he counts too).
I have a freaking huge extended family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, cousin’s spouses, cousin’s kids, all of the above’s dogs, the spouses of the children from my father’s sister’s husband’s first marriage, etc.
To me ‘family’ is my parents and sisters. ‘Extended family’ are my grandmothers, aunts, uncles who are still married to my aunts, and my six 1st cousins. I have a smallish family which has spread all over the country and the world. I’ve barely met any family more extended than my cousins, and I haven’t seen or spoken to anyone in my extended family since 2006 or 2007.
I include my parents, kids, husband, aunts, uncles and cousins, and my husband’s family, but I also include my sister’s ex-husband and her new boyfriend (and also her, of course), my two sons-in-law-to -be, (and my new grandbaby, of course), and also all the sons-in-law’s families. And also the kids of my two best friends who grew up with my kids like cousins. And our dogs and cats, of course.
In my view it varies by individual family. If there have been “friendly divorces” and multiple marriages with offspring due to deaths, then the whole group of kin and near-kin go into one’s “extended family” if they are close enough in spirit to spend time together.
If you look at the family tree and start with the common ancestor three generations back, then “extended family” would include everybody related by blood and marriage, especially those living near enough to each other to gather for “family occasions.”
I know of at least one family where almost every combination of step-, half-, whoever in-law are as much family as full siblings and such. To me, that’s going a bit far to say you’re kin to somebody. But that’s their thing and it works for them.
Some families have no idea who’s the father of whom, so “extended family” might be anybody in the same county.
Not quite this. Family is mom, dad, sibling, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Extended family is my parents’ cousins & their kids, my great aunts and uncles, and the spouses of all of them.
A thought: Who you think of as family, or extended family, or whatever, might depend on how much you see of one another, which may depend on how far apart you live.
When I was wee, the “extended family” who lived in the area visited one another rather regularly, and had a big Thanksgiving dinner every year. This included aunts/uncles and their children (my first cousins), but also a few second-cousins, also the last living grand-parent.
But I had many other second-cousins (and their parents, my father’s first-cousins) who lived far away, and who I never met. And one first-cousin likewise.
So the ones that I knew seemed like “family”, and the others seemed like some kind of strangers that I only heard of occasionally when someone mentioned. Over the years, I’ve occasionally met a few of them, but they still don’t seem like “family” or “extended family” to me.
I’m not even sure how to say “extended family” in Spanish… but a related incident:
years ago, I was taking this “job seekers course”, adressed specifically to women. The teacher was female as well. At one point, we had to arrange a series of values in order of priority. One of them was “family”, and clarification was requested whether it meant “family in general” or “close family”: “close family”, ok. The other women placed “family” in the 1st or 2nd spot; for me it was 8th or so, of 10. When they started exclaiming their outrage, I pointed out that “you’re all married with kids, so if someone asks about your close family, you think husband and kids. Me, I think two adult brothers, one of them married, and a kraken mother. 'tain’t the same, ladies!” They agreed that yeah, ok, for them “parents and siblings” also went behind health, job, friends…
I guess in my case the definition of extended family is “any relatives of mine other than mother, brothers, sister in law and nephews”.
Very close to some of these but growing up family was parents and siblings. Post-wedding, famiy was spouse and (eventually) offspring. Extended famiy was everyone else that I was related to by blood or marriage. Wife’s extended family was sometimes a clarification but depending on context the modifier was not required.
Now with children living elsewhere and separated from spouse, family is more tricky to define.
Your “family” is whoever lives in your residence. Anybody else you’re related to by blood or current (sometimes former) marriage is “extended family”.
When I was a kid and lived in my parent’s house, we were family. Ever since I’ve lived other than at their house, they’ve been extended family.
Alternatively, family is blood parents, blood siblings, and blood children regardless of where they live. Everybody else is extended family. Step-parents, -siblings, and -children are a gray area & could go either way.
I definitely don’t subscribe to the OP’s idea that extended family are only distant relatives & whatever-in-laws multiple-times removed. Nor have I ever noticed anyone else, including authors, using the term that way.
To me, my family is everyone I am related to by blood or marriage.
Parents, sibling, in-laws are close or immediate family, the rest are just family.
As someone who has made a life in a country that I was not born in and did not grow up in, my extended family are my friends here who have become like family to me. I am closer to many of them that I am most of my ‘just family’.