Is able to house large family (4)
I believe the answer is:
clan
'family' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'is able to house large' is the wordplay.
'is able' becomes 'can' (I've seen this before**).
'to house' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'large' becomes 'l'.
'can' going around 'l' is 'CLAN'.
(Other definitions for clan that I've seen before include "Tribal group with common ancestor" , "One from Benghazi" , "Highland grouping" , "Kin group" , "(Scottish) family group" .)