Word.ws English Dictionary

matriarchy

/ˈmeɪ.tɹiˌɑː.ki/US/ˈmeɪ.tɹiˌɑɹ.ki/

matriarchy noun: a social system in which the mother is head of household, having authority over men and children, and lineage is traced through the female line.

Noun

matriarchy (countable and uncountable, plural matriarchies)

  1. A social system in which the mother is head of household, having authority over men and children, and lineage is traced through the female line.
    • The difficulty is that when a man thinks of matriarchy, he thinks of a patriarchy with women in the place of men; he does not stop to consider that matriarchy may be a complete mirror-image. Where patriarchy establishes law, matriarchy establishes custom; where patriarchy establishes military...1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 149
  2. A system of government by women (particularly as a kind of polity).
  3. The dominance of women in social or cultural systems.

matriarchy meaning in Hindi, Kannada, Arabic and Thai

matriarchy in Hindi

social system
मातृसत्ता mātŕsattā
system of government
मातृसत्ता mātŕsattā

matriarchy in Kannada

ತಾಯಿಯಾಳಿಕೆ

matriarchy in Arabic

social system
الأمومية al-umumiyya

matriarchy in Thai

social system
มาตาธิปไตย maa-dtaa-tí-bpà-dtai
system of government
มาตาธิปไตย maa-dtaa-tí-bpà-dtai

Synonyms of matriarchy

Antonyms

Forms of matriarchy

pluralmatriarchies

Origin of matriarchy

Coined after patriarchy, from Latin māter (“mother”) and Ancient Greek ἄρχω (árkhō, “to rule”). By surface analysis, matri- + -archy.

Words formed from matriarchy

Questions about matriarchy

What does matriarchy mean?
Matriarchy means a social system in which the mother is head of household, having authority over men and children, and lineage is traced through the female line.
What is matriarchy in Hindi?
Matriarchy in Hindi is मातृसत्ता (mātŕsattā). See Matriarchy meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is matriarchy?
Matriarchy is a noun.
How do you pronounce matriarchy?
Matriarchy is pronounced /ˈmeɪ.tɹiˌɑː.ki/ (UK).
What is the plural of matriarchy?
The plural of matriarchy is matriarchies.

Words near matriarchy in the dictionary

  1. matriarchies
  2. matriarchism
  3. matriarchist
  4. matriarchists
  5. matriarchs
  6. matriarchy
  7. matric
  8. matrical
  9. matrically
  10. matricaria
  11. matricarias

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: matriarchy (page history and authors); matriarchy (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-matriarchy.wav.

Cite this entry: “matriarchy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/matriarchy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.