1869 T. Turner ii. 130 We..see that, from a parent stem-word, we obtain a large word-family.
1926 H. W. Fowler 553/2 A phonetically consistent method is in English peculiarly hard to reconcile with the keeping together of word families.
2000 Oct. 61/1 Hearing that initial letter..is the big early reading skill. From that, kids can use all the rimes to make word families.