patria potestas
patria potestas noun: the legal power and rights of a Roman father over his children and descendants by virtue of his paternity.
Noun
patria potestas (uncountable)
- The legal power and rights of a Roman father over his children and descendants by virtue of his paternity.
- It was a condition of the patria potestas that the child should be born in marriage.1870, William George Smith (ed.), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd American ed., page 742
- The Roman Vestals appear to have been under the patria potestas of the king, and, in repubmlican times, of the Pontifex Maximus, who succeeded to some of the king's functions. But if they were under the patria potestas of the king, they must have been either his wives or daughters.1890, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 2, page 228
Origin of patria potestas
From Latin patria potestās.
Questions about patria potestas
- What does patria potestas mean?
- Patria potestas means the legal power and rights of a Roman father over his children and descendants by virtue of his paternity.
- What part of speech is patria potestas?
- Patria potestas is a noun.
Words near patria potestas in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: patria potestas (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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