How to Use paterfamilias in a Sentence

paterfamilias

noun

• As his last act, the small but mighty paterfamilias gives an arm and a life to the cause of reproduction.
  — Taylor Maggiacomo, National Geographic, 17 June 2019
• Turns out more than one of the guests had a previous run-in with the troubled family — and a reason to dislike the paterfamilias.
  — Roberta Alexander, The Mercury News, 13 Mar. 2017
• Beard, for his part, seems to have embraced his status as paterfamilias.
  — Madeline Leung Coleman, The Atlantic, 29 Nov. 2020
• As in the Capra classic, the madcap proceedings swirl around an aged paterfamilias.
  — Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 20 Oct. 2017
• Marshall, now in his 60s, is the paterfamilias of African-American painting, with decades invested in depicting, over and over, scenes of black American life.
  — Murray Whyte, BostonGlobe.com, 31 Aug. 2019
• This paterfamilias has lazily added a too-big polo shirt, a freebie baseball cap and drugstore sunglasses.
  — Terrance Flynn, WSJ, 20 July 2017
• This is Putin’s vision of the Russian world, a strong and blessed house with Russia as the paterfamilias, tough and occasionally harsh, but ultimately benevolent, sharing the fruits of Russian civilization with those who belong to its world.
  — Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 18 June 2022
• Thoreau also took particular pleasure in the Emerson children, who adored their pinch-hitting paterfamilias.
  — James Marcus, The New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2021

Last Updated: 24 Jul 2024