Patriarchal

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Patriarchal \Pa`tri*ar"chal\, a. [Cf. F. patriarcal.]
     1. Of or pertaining to a patriarch or to patriarchs;
        possessed by, or subject to, patriarchs; as, patriarchal
        authority or jurisdiction; a patriarchal see; a
        patriarchal church.
        [1913 Webster]


  
     2. Characteristic of a patriarch; venerable.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              About whose patriarchal knee
              Late the little children clung.       --Tennyson.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Ethnol.) Having an organization of society and government
        in which the head of the family exercises authority over
        all its generations.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Patriarchal cross} (Her.), a cross, the shaft of which is
        intersected by two transverse beams, the upper one being
        the smaller. See Illust. (2) of {Cross}.
  
     {Patriarchal dispensation}, the divine dispensation under
        which the patriarchs lived before the law given by Moses.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  patriarchal
       adj : characteristic of a patriarchy [ant: {matriarchal}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  98 Moby Thesaurus words for "patriarchal":
     aboriginal, absolute, advanced, advanced in life,
     advanced in years, aged, along in years, ancestorial, ancestral,
     ancient, antepatriarchal, aristocratic, atavistic, authoritarian,
     autochthonous, autocratic, autonomous, bureaucratic, civic, civil,
     constitutional, democratic, despotic, dictatorial, elderly,
     fascist, fatherlike, fatherly, federal, federalist, federalistic,
     governmental, grandfatherly, grandmotherly, grandparental, gray,
     gray with age, gray-haired, gray-headed, grown old, gubernatorial,
     heteronomous, hoar, hoary, humanoid, maternal, matriarchal,
     matriarchic, monarchal, monarchial, monarchic, monocratic, mother,
     motherlike, motherly, official, old, old as Methuselah, oligarchal,
     oligarchic, parent, parental, parliamentarian, parliamentary,
     paternal, patriarchic, pluralistic, political, preadamite,
     preglacial, prehistoric, prehuman, prime, primeval, primitive,
     primogenial, primoprimitive, primordial, pristine, protohistoric,
     protohuman, republican, revered, reverend, reverential,
     self-governing, senectuous, theocratic, totalitarian, venerable,
     white, white with age, white-bearded, white-crowned, white-haired,
     wrinkled, wrinkly, years old