Patrilineal

adj

adj ·5 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Pertaining to descent through male lines. not-comparable

    "The Xhosa are a proud and patrilineal people with an expressive and euphonious language and an abiding belief in the importance of laws, education and courtesy."

Adjective
  1. 1
    based on or tracing descent through the male line wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
affiliatedagnateakinalliedavuncularclosely related

Example

More examples

"Around 20% of Spaniards today have direct patrilineal descent from Sephardic Jews."

Etymology

From patri- + lineal. Coined by British government anthropologist Northcote Whitridge Thomas in 1904 along with matrilineal.

Related phrases

patrilineal Jewpatrilineal cousinpatrilineal descentpatrilineal linepatrilineal lineage

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