What does familiar mean?
Word: Familiar
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Familiar means well known to you because you have seen or heard it many times before.
Synonyms: known, common
How do you spell familiar?
Syllables: fa - mil - iar
Tricky part: The first five letters come straight from family. Said quickly, it can sound like fer-mil-yer, which leads to fermiliar.
Watch out for: familer, famillar, fermiliar
Memory tip: Your family is familiar to you, and both words start with the same five letters, f-a-m-i-l.
Familiar in a sentence
Example 1: The tune sounded familiar, but I could not remember the song.
Example 2: It was nice to see a familiar face on the first day of school.
Example 3: Are you familiar with the rules of netball?
Fun Fact
Familiar goes back to the Latin familia, household, which once meant everyone living in a house, servants included.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word:
familiar
a) normal
b) usual
c) everyday
d) strange
Show answer
d) strange. Something strange is new to you, so it is not familiar.
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) familiar
b) holliday
c) diffrent
d) nieghbour
Show answer
a) familiar. Different has an e after ff, neighbour has ei and holiday has one l, so familiar is the only one spelt right.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
The smell of Grandma's kitchen was so familier that I felt at home at once.
a) kitchen
b) home
c) smell
d) familier
Show answer
d) familier. The ending is iar, as in peculiar, not ier.
Word Makeup
Choose the correct prefix to complete the word:
familiar
a) im
b) in
c) dis
d) un
Show answer
d) un. Un turns familiar into unfamiliar, meaning not known to you.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Tara is visiting a new city for the first time. Which of these would feel familiar to her?
a) the signs in a new language
b) the faces in the hotel lobby
c) the streets of the new city
d) the voice of her own brother
Show answer
d) the voice of her own brother
2. Which beginning turns familiar into a word meaning not known to you?
a) im
b) in
c) un
d) dis
Show answer
c) un
