patriarchal

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.

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World English Dictionary

patriarch (ˈpeɪtrɪˌɑːk)

—n
1.	Compare matriarch the male head of a tribe or family
2.	a very old or venerable man
3.	Old Testament any of a number of persons regarded as the fathers of the human race, divided into the antediluvian patriarchs, from Adam to Noah, and the postdiluvian, from Noah to Abraham
4.	Old Testament any of the three ancestors of the Hebrew people: Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob
5.	Old Testament any of Jacob's twelve sons, regarded as the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel
6.	Early Church the bishop of one of several principal sees, esp those of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria
7.	Eastern Orthodox Church the bishops of the four ancient principal sees of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, and also of Russia, Romania, and Serbia, the bishop of Constantinople (the ecumenical Patriarch) being highest in dignity among these
8.	RC Church
	a. a title given to the pope
	b. a title given to a number of bishops, esp of the Uniat Churches, indicating their rank as immediately below that of the pope
9.	Mormon Church another word for Evangelist
10.	Eastern Christianity the head of the Coptic, Armenian, Syrian Jacobite, or Nestorian Churches, and of certain other non-Orthodox Churches in the East
11.	the oldest or most venerable member of a group, community, etc: the patriarch of steam engines
12.	a person regarded as the founder of a community, tradition, etc

[C12: via Old French from Church Latin patriarcha]

patri'archal

—*adj*

patri'archally

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

patriarchal

1560s, "pertaining to a (Church) patriarch," from L.L. patriarchalis (c.500), from patriarcha (see patriarch).

Example sentences

As a result, what has all the trappings of a patriarchal culture, actually has

many elements of a matriarchal one.

For most people, it was that world—orderly, patriarchal and even

devout—that still dominated daily life.

The six comedians, however iconoclastic they were for their times, certainly

embodied some patriarchal prejudices.

Except for weapons, ornaments, tools and suchlike personal possessions there

was a sort of patriarchal communism in the tribe.

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matriarchate patriarchal cross principle

Matching Quote

"Women's liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a necessary substructure of the authoritarian state, and once that withers away Marx will have come true willy-nilly, so let's get on with it."

-Germaine Greer