Terminology
The term "Family resemblance" as feature of Wittgenstein's philosophy owes much to its translation in English. Wittgenstein, who wrote mostly in German, used the compound word 'Familienähnlichkeit' but as he lectured and conversed in English he used 'family likeness' (e.g. The Blue Book, p. 17,33; The Brown Book,§66). However in the Philosophical Investigations the separate word 'ähnlichkeit' has been translated as 'similarity' (§§11,130,185,444) and on two occasions (§§9,90) it is given as 'like'. The German family-word is common and it is found in Grimm's dictionary; a rare occurrence of 'family likeness' has been noted in a lecture by J. F. Moulton in 1877.
Read more about this topic: Family Resemblance