Found 2 items, similar to Patriarchal.
English → English (WordNet) Definition: patriarchal patriarchal adj : characteristic of a patriarchy [ant: matriarchal]
English → English (gcide) Definition: Patriarchal 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]