Word.ws English Dictionary

patrilectal

patrilectal adjective: consistent with the patrilect.

Adjective

patrilectal (not comparable)

  1. Consistent with the patrilect.
    • In short, the tendencies to regional endogamy (including coastal area endogamy) and patrilectal exogamy exist in practice, if not in law.2000, Robert M. W. Dixon, Barry J. Blake, Handbook of Australian Languages - Volume 5, →ISBN, page 361
    • Sui children rapidly learn to distinguish these clan-related dialects; young children may speak a mix of matrilect and patrilect, but older children and teenagers are almost fully patrilectal (Stanford, 2008b).2013, Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs, Gerard Van Herk, Data Collection in Sociolinguistics, →ISBN

Examples of patrilectal in a sentence

  • Children above five are ridiculed for any use of their mother's speech pattern, and by age five to seven, children use the patrilectal forms.2014, Martin Pütz, Justyna A. Robinson, Monika Reif, Cognitive Sociolinguistics, →ISBN, page 30:
  • Sui children have a mix of matrilect and patrilect at very young ages, but they eventually become fully patrilectal by late adolescence.2015, Claire Bowern, Bethwyn Evans, The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, →ISBN:

Origin of patrilectal

From patrilect + -al.

Questions about patrilectal

What does patrilectal mean?
Patrilectal means consistent with the patrilect.
How do you use patrilectal in a sentence?
Children above five are ridiculed for any use of their mother's speech pattern, and by age five to seven, children use the patrilectal forms.
What part of speech is patrilectal?
Patrilectal is an adjective.

Words near patrilectal in the dictionary

  1. Patrikyan
  2. Patrikyans
  3. patrilateral
  4. patrilaterally
  5. patrilect
  6. patrilectal
  7. patrilects
  8. patriline
  9. patrilineage
  10. patrilineages
  11. patrilineal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: patrilectal (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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