Lares

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The household deities watching over one's family and tutelary deities watching over some public places. Roman, plural, plural-normally
  2. 2
    Alternative letter-case form of Lares. alt-of, plural, plural-normally

    "The season now invites me to retire To the dear lares of my household fire To homely scenes of calm domestic peace, A poet's leisure, and an old man's ease..."

  3. 3
    The idols representing these deities. historical, plural, plural-normally

Synonyms

All synonyms
penates

Example

More examples

"The season now invites me to retire To the dear lares of my household fire To homely scenes of calm domestic peace, A poet's leisure, and an old man's ease..."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Latin Lares, plural form of lār, from Etruscan [Term?].

Etymology 2

From the Latin plural lares, from lar, q.v.

Related phrases

lares and penateshousehold deitiestutelary deitieswatching over

More for "lares"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.