Materfamilias definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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It's very odd, indeed I couldn't help suspecting that the materfamilias was at the bottom of it all, and that she was bent upon going out to America to participate in the prosperity of her two daughters, who were living "like leddies" at * * in Massachusetts The incident recalled to me something which happened years ago when I was returning with the Storys from Rome to Boston.

—Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888)

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Definitions (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

noun A woman who is the head of a household or the mother of a family.

Century Dictionary

GNU Webster's 1913

WordNet (1)

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Examples (38)

The dense, tough, outermost membranous envelope of the brain and spinal cord materfamilias: family mother.
Edith Scob plays the materfamilias, who takes son Charles Berling aside on her 75th birthday to plan the postmortem disposition of her objets d'art, which become the repository of the family's history after her death.
She is the equal in dignity of her husband; she is called the mother of the family (materfamilias) just as her husband is called the father of the family (paterfamilias). — History Of Ancient Civilization
What if materfamilias, with her quick sure instincts and honest innocent eyes, do more towards their expulsion by simply looking at them and calling them by their names? — The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II
It's very odd, indeed I couldn't help suspecting that the materfamilias was at the bottom of it all, and that she was bent upon going out to America to participate in the prosperity of her two daughters, who were living "like leddies" at * * in Massachusetts The incident recalled to me something which happened years ago when I was returning with the Storys from Rome to Boston. — Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888)