In set theory and related branches of mathematics, a collection F of subsets of a given set S is called a family of subsets of S, or a family of sets over S. More generally, a collection of any sets whatsoever is called a family of sets.
The term "collection" is used here because, in some contexts, a family of sets may be allowed to contain repeated copies of any given member, and in other contexts it may form a proper class rather than a set.
Certain types of objects from other areas of mathematics are equivalent to families of sets, in that they can be described purely as a collection of sets of objects of some type: