Question

dysfunctional A psychologist would call their family dysfunctional, but even though there's a lot of yelling and slamming of doors, they seem pretty happy to me. dɪsˈfəŋkʃənəl

Accepted Answer

(1) Showing abnormal or unhealthy behaviors and attitudes within a group of people. (2) Being unable to function in a normal way. Dysfunctional and dysfunction have been used for almost a hundred years, often in medical writing (“brain dysfunction,” “a dysfunctional liver”) but also by social scientists (“a dysfunctional city council,” “diplomatic dysfunction”). But they only really entered the general vocabulary in the 1980s, when therapists and talk-show hosts began talking about dysfunctional families. The signs of family dysfunction turned out to be numerous, and it soon began to seem as if pretty much all our families could be called dysfunctional.

word	dysfunctional
definition	(1) Showing abnormal or unhealthy behaviors and attitudes within a group of people. (2) Being unable to function in a normal way.
eg_sentence	A psychologist would call their family dysfunctional, but even though there's a lot of yelling and slamming of doors, they seem pretty happy to me.
explanation	Dysfunctional and dysfunction have been used for almost a hundred years, often in medical writing (“brain dysfunction,” “a dysfunctional liver”) but also by social scientists (“a dysfunctional city council,” “diplomatic dysfunction”). But they only really entered the general vocabulary in the 1980s, when therapists and talk-show hosts began talking about dysfunctional families. The signs of family dysfunction turned out to be numerous, and it soon began to seem as if pretty much all our families could be called dysfunctional.
IPA	dɪsˈfəŋkʃənəl

Dysfunctional Family Pretty Dysfunction Began Showing Abnormal Unhealthy