PATRIARCH

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• PATRIARCH (noun)
  The noun PATRIARCH has 4 senses:

1. title for the heads of the Eastern Orthodox Churches (in Istanbul and Alexandria and Moscow and Jerusalem)

2. the male head of family or tribe

3. any of the early biblical characters regarded as fathers of the human race

4. a man who is older and higher in rank than yourself

  Familiarity information: PATRIARCH used as a noun is uncommon.

• PATRIARCH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Title for the heads of the Eastern Orthodox Churches (in Istanbul and Alexandria and Moscow and Jerusalem)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("patriarch" is a kind of...):

spiritual leader (a leader in religious or sacred affairs)

Instance hyponyms:

Nestorius (Syrian who was a Christian bishop and Patriarch of Constantinople in the early fifth century; one of the major heresies concerning the doctrine of the hypostasis of Christ was named after him (died in 451))

Photius (Patriarch of Constantinople and saint of the Greek Orthodox Church; was condemned by the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 869 but was reinstated by a later pope)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The male head of family or tribe

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

paterfamilias; patriarch

Hypernyms ("patriarch" is a kind of...):

head of household (the head of a household or family or tribe)

adult male; man (an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman))

Derivation:

patriarchal (characteristic of a form of social organization in which the male is the family head and title is traced through the male line)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Any of the early biblical characters regarded as fathers of the human race

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("patriarch" is a kind of...):

father; forefather; sire (the founder of a family)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "patriarch"):

antediluvian; antediluvian patriarch (any of the early patriarchs who lived prior to the Noachian deluge)

Jacob ((Old Testament) son of Isaac; brother of Esau; father of the twelve patriarchs of Israel; Jacob wrestled with God and forced God to bless him, so God gave Jacob the new name of Israel (meaning 'one who has been strong against God'))

Simeon ((Old Testament) the 2nd son of Jacob and one of the 12 patriarchs of Israel)

Instance hyponyms:

Abraham; Ibrahim (the first of the Old Testament patriarchs and the father of Isaac; according to Genesis, God promised to give Abraham's family (the Hebrews) the land of Canaan (the Promised Land); God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son)

Benjamin ((Old Testament) the youngest and best-loved son of Jacob and Rachel and one of the twelve forebears of the tribes of Israel)

Isaac ((Old Testament) the second patriarch; son of Abraham and Sarah who was offered by Abraham as a sacrifice to God; father of Jacob and Esau)

Ishmael ((Old Testament) the son of Abraham who was cast out after the birth of Isaac; considered the forebear of 12 Arabian tribes)

Issachar ((Old Testament) a son of Jacob and a forebear of one of the tribes of Israel)

Joseph ((Old Testament) the 11th son of Jacob and one of the 12 patriarchs of Israel; Jacob gave Joseph a coat of many colors, which made his brothers jealous and they sold him into slavery in Egypt)

Judah ((Old Testament) the fourth son of Jacob who was forebear of one of the tribes of Israel; one of his descendants was to be the Messiah)

Methuselah ((Old Testament) a patriarch (grandfather of Noah) who is said to have lived 969 years)

Noah (the Hebrew patriarch who saved himself and his family and the animals by building an ark in which they survived 40 days and 40 nights of rain; the story of Noah and the flood is told in the Book of Genesis)

Reuben ((Old Testment) a son of Jacob and forefather of one of the tribes of Israel)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A man who is older and higher in rank than yourself

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("patriarch" is a kind of...):

graybeard; greybeard; Methuselah; old man (a man who is very old)

Derivation:

patriarchal (relating to or characteristic of a man who is older or higher in rank)

 Context examples 

Right in front of the house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most magnificent trees that I have ever seen.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up, recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had done with the world, and mustn't on any account have the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Now, the old sofa was a regular patriarch of a sofa—long, broad, well-cushioned, and low, a trifle shabby, as well it might be, for the girls had slept and sprawled on it as babies, fished over the back, rode on the arms, and had menageries under it as children, and rested tired heads, dreamed dreams, and listened to tender talk on it as young women.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)