characteristic of a form of social organization in which the male is the family head and title is traced through the male line
<adj.all>
relating to or characteristic of a man who is older or higher in rank
<adj.pert>
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.
2. Characteristic of a patriarch; venerable.
About whose patriarchal knee Late the little children clung. --Tennyson.
3. (Ethnol.) Having an organization of society and government in which the head of the family exercises authority over all its generations.
{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.
The last Bayreuth "Lohengrin," directed by Gotz Friedrich, emphasized the opera's militant, patriarchal underpinnings to make contemporary political points.
This growth is the vision of Dillard's 76-year-old founder, William Dillard, a tough, patriarchal Southerner used to getting his own way.
For decades, the birthrate of the Turkish minority has been growing, while the once famous Bulgarian patriarchal traditions have completely disappeared.
The communal voice of the chorus is reduced to a patriarchal lynch mob.
Failure by parliament to elect a new president by a two-thirds majority on its third attempt would mean an immediate election. Despite their ideological differences, some socialists find the patriarchal Mr Karamanlis a reassuring figure.