Gorgoniidae is a family of soft corals, a member of the subclass Octocorallia in the phylum Cnidaria.

Originally the members of the family Gorgoniidae included a much wider range of genera than it does now and was used for all of the horny Octocorallia.

in length, sculptured with regularly disposed girdles of complicated tubercles ('warts'), the anthocodiae are relatively unarmed, at most with but a few characteristically shaped flat rods en chevron beneath each tentacle, the horny axial cylinder is weakly loculated if at all, and is perforated by a relatively narrow, chambered central chord, and in which the branchlets are usually quite slender, with a thin cortex.

"[2] The polyps are retractable and the stems have an axis of the protein gorgonin surrounding a narrow, hollow, cross-chambered central core.

[citation needed] The main feature which separates the members of the different genera is the degree and type of spiculation.