ma·tri·ar·chy

[mey-tree-ahr-kee]
noun, plural ma·tri·ar·chies.
1.
a family, society, community, or state governed by women.
2.
a form of social organization in which the mother is head of the family, and in which descent is reckoned in the female line, the children belonging to the mother's clan; matriarchal system.

Origin:
1880–85; matri- + -archy

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
matriarchy (ˈmeɪtrɪˌɑːkɪ) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n , pl -chies
1.  a form of social organization in which a female is head of the family or society, and descent and kinship are traced through the female line
2.  any society dominated by women

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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00:10
Matriarchy is always a great word to know.
So is gobo. Does it mean:
a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

matriarchy
formed in English 1885 from matriarch.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
Cultural Dictionary
matriarchy [(may-tree-ahr-kee)]

A family or society in which authority is held by females, through whom descent and inheritance are traced. More generally, a matriarchy is a society dominated by women. (See also matrilineal, patriarchy, and patrilineal.)

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Example sentences
But she was right that the new matriarchy would not survive her.
They create a matriarchy that sustains an off-kilter patriarch.
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