Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In anthropology, relating to that form of society in which the child takes its name from the mother's family, or in which the child is reckoned as a member of the maternal family.
- Derived from the name of a mother or other female ancestor: correlative to patronymic: as, a metronymic name.
- noun A maternal name; a name derived from the mother or a maternal ancestor.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Derived from the name of one's mother, or other female ancestor.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Alternative form of
matronymic . - noun Alternative form of
matronymic .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a name derived from the name of your mother or a maternal ancestor
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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The frozen smile has to go too, along with the metronymic nodding, which sometimes goes on long enough to suggest a placement within the autism spectrum.
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Descent henceforth was reckoned in the paternal line, and society had become patronymic instead of metronymic.
Society Its Origin and Development Henry Kalloch Rowe
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Some writers speak of it as a matriarchal period, but it does not appear that women governed; it is more proper to speak of the family as metronymic, for the children bore the mother's name and maternity outweighed paternity in social estimate.
Society Its Origin and Development Henry Kalloch Rowe
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It is fairly well established that, in the transition from metronymic to patronymic forms, authority did not pass from women to men, but from the brothers and maternal uncles of the women of the group to the husbands and sons.
Taboo and Genetics A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family Melvin Moses Knight 1934
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As we have said before, it is now fairly well established that in the transition from metronymic to patronymic forms, authority did not pass from women to men but from the brothers and maternal uncles of the women of the group to husbands and sons.
Taboo and Genetics A Study of the Biological, Sociological and Psychological Foundation of the Family Melvin Moses Knight 1934
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Among many tribes of the North American Indians this metronymic or maternal system was peculiarly well-developed.
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Ethnologists and sociologists have practically concluded, from the amount of evidence now collected, that this maternal or metronymic system was the primitive system of tracing relationships, and that it was succeeded among the European peoples by the paternal system so long ago that the transition from the one to the other has been forgotten, except as some trace of it has been preserved in customs, legends, and the like.
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Iroquois Indians, among whom Morgan lived, were a typical maternal or metronymic people.
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Strictly speaking, therefore, there has never been a matriarchal stage of social evolution, but rather a maternal or metronymic stage.
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The following are unique -- Carteret, Doll [Footnote: This may also be a metronymic, from
The Romance of Names Ernest Weekley 1909
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