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patriarchy

[pay-tree-ahr-kee] / ˈpeɪ triˌɑr ki /
NOUN
society led by men
Synonyms
STRONGEST
patriarchism patriarchship
STRONG
patriarchate


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

When asked by Falchuk to reflect on her “feminist awakening,” she mentions that her time in India studying Gandhi was when she “realized that patriarchy was made up. Racism was made up.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

Traditional patriarchy isn’t some cheat code to make marriage happy.

From Salon ● Apr. 8, 2026

Markus Schleinzer's "Rose" premiered at the Berlin film festival Sunday, with Sandra Hueller playing a woman in 17th-century Germany trying to escape the strictures of patriarchy by passing herself off as a man.

From Barron's ● Feb. 15, 2026

In Malayalam cinema, Feminichi Fathima - with "Feminichi" a social-media distortion of "feminist" - used humour to follow a Muslim housewife's quiet rebellion against patriarchy.

From BBC ● Jan. 2, 2026

Jane, your films were about sticking it to the man, snapping back at the patriarchy by showing strong female protagonists who didn’t conform to gender roles.

From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon

But it has retained the grammatical norms of ancient patriarchies.

From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2022

Instead they serve the story’s bracingly modern sensibility, its insistence on dramatizing the injustices of the past while confronting the patriarchies of the present.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2018

“I want to contribute our idea that most of human history was very different from what we have today, with our monotheistic patriarchies and their ‘pyramid’ structures of authority from the top,” she said.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 19, 2015

Many of Africa’s Christians also practice F.G.M., and in any event, it didn’t originate with any of the three patriarchies we call monotheism.

From The New Yorker ● Oct. 23, 2014

For some this undoes all the film’s good work in deconstructing, destabilizing, and generally dissing oppressive male patriarchies.

From Slate ● Jun. 6, 2012



Vocabulary lists containing patriarchy


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