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Paterfamilias   Listen
noun
Paterfamilias  n.  (pl. pateresfamilias)  (Rom. Law) The head of a family; in a large sense, the proprietor of an estate; one who is his own master.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Paterfamilias" Quotes from Famous Books



... puns in Latin. He quips and quirks in Ionic and Doric. In the worst stages of the disease he will edit Greek plays and say that Merry quite misses the fun of the passage, or that Jebb is mediocre. Think, I beg of you, paterfamilias, and you, mater ditto, what your feelings would be were you to find Henry or Archibald Cuthbert correcting proofs of The Agamemnon, and inventing 'nasty ones' for Mr Sidgwick! Very well ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... PATERFAMILIAS—None whatever. He is liable for direct damage both to your chimneys and any collateral damage caused by fall of bricks into garden, etc., etc. Bodily inconvenience and mental anguish may be included, but the average jury are not, as a rule, men of sentiment. If you can ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling

... that there is a great deal of poverty in our midst. While each new fit lasts the enthusiasm of good people is quite impressive in its intensity; all the old hackneyed signatures appear by scores in the newspapers, and "Pro Bono Publico," "Audi Alteram Partem," "X.Y.Z.," "Paterfamilias," "An Inquirer," have their theories quite pat and ready. Picturesque writers pile horror on horror, and strive, with the delightful emulation of their class, to outdo each other; far-fetched accounts of oppression, ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... bustle: kneelers were distributed according to requirements, books sorted out after the solemn unlocking of the little box that contained them, sticks and hats safely stowed away. These duties performed, paterfamilias cast one penetrating glance round the church, and leaned gracefully forward with a kind of circular motion. Having suitably addressed Almighty God (it is to be supposed), he would lean back, adjust his trousers, possibly place an elbow on the pew-door, and contemplate with ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... place, it is ever the same thing; Poor Paterfamilias always must suffer. A dyspeptic, a costly, a lame and a tame thing Is Holiday-time ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various

... no nonsense about them!") in pork pie hats and crinolines, the superlative "Jeames's," the hairy "Mossoos," the music-grinding Italian desperadoes whom their kind creator hated so? And then the intrepidity of "Mr. Briggs," the Roman rule of "Paterfamilias," the vagaries of the "Rising Generation!" There are things in this gallery over which the severest misanthrope must chuckle—they are simply irresistible. Let any one take, say that smallest sketch of the hapless mortal who has turned on the hot water ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... answered, stroking her hair. "I am proud of you—I am grateful to you. A man falls behind the times before he is aware of it. The world changes and paterfamilias ought to change with it out of consideration for his children. You were perfectly right, Josephine, just as you were right about the moving. Our house was too small and I was getting to ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... Mrs. Beecot, having been bullied into old age long before her time, accepted sour looks and hard words as necessary to God's providence, but Paul, a fiery youth, resented useless nagging. He owned more brain-power than his progenitor, and to this favoring of Nature paterfamilias naturally objected. Paul also desired fame, which was likewise a crime ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... sat up straight in his chair. "Come in, whoever you are!" He gave the invitation with the dignity of a Roman paterfamilias, absolute master of his house. The door ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... occasion, in which the lady behaved with much Christian perversity of temper. "Alas," says Quintus to his brother, "you see what it is that I have to suffer every day!" Knowing as we all do how great were the powers of the Roman paterfamilias, and how little woman's rights had been ventilated in those days, we should have thought that an ex-Praetor might have managed his home more comfortably; but ladies, no doubt, have had the capacity to make themselves disagreeable ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... omnibus clatters in; "Mr." confronts us, smiling and serene, with his two Secretaries of Legation. He discriminates the Inn-comers at a glance.—"Numero 10, 11, 12, entresol;" for Noah-like Paterfamilias with Caravan; "Numero 656, for se Leddy's med;" "Numero 80, for me, the soi-disant Habitue;" it's the room I'm supposed to have always had, so I pretend to like it. One Unremunerative-looking Pedestrian, in knickerbockers, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various

... have no fires and hardly any food, bitterly complain of the "seasonable" weather. With plenty of money, with warm clothes, and a good house, a hard frost has its charms, without them it is not quite so agreeable. For my part I confess that I never have seen a paterfamilias with his coat tails raised, basking himself before his fire, and prating about the delights of winter, and the healthy glow which is caused by a sharp frost, without feeling an irresistible desire to transplant him stark naked to the highest peak of Mont Blanc, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... neighbouring mosque, the loudly intoned Amin and Allaho Akbar,—far superior to any organ,—rang in my ear. The evening gun of camp was represented by the Nakkarah, or kettle-drum, sounded about seven P.M. at the southern gate; and at ten a second drumming warned the paterfamilias that it was time for home, and thieves, and lovers,—that it was the hour for bastinado. Nightfall was ushered in by the song, the dance, and the marriage festival,—here no permission is required for "native music in the lines,"—and muffled figures flitted mysteriously through ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... swinging about, I espied a man seated upon a stool; a plump, middle-aged, family sort of man, who sat upon his low stool, his aproned knees set wide, as plump, middle-aged family men often do. As I watched, Paterfamilias squinted along the sights of one of these guns and once again came that shivering crash that is like nothing else I ever heard. Him I approached and humbly ventured an awed question or so, whereon he graciously beckoned me nearer, vacated his stool, and motioning me to sit there, suggested I ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol

... not privileged, whether he be paterfamilias, (heorthfest,[A]) or pedissequa, (folghere,[B]) must enter into the hundred and tithing, and all above twelve to swear he will not be a thief or consenting ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... that Nell Gwynne has every amiable quality and the Bishop's wife every odious one. Poor Mr. Pecksniff, who is generally no worse than a humbug with a turn for pompous talking, is represented as a criminal instead of as a very typical English paterfamilias keeping a roof over the head of himself and his daughters by inducing people to pay him more for his services than they are worth. In the extreme instances of reaction against convention, female murderers get sheaves of offers of marriage; ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw

... novels, men who read folios all the morning and drink port all the evening, where are they in reality? Not at Cambridge, certainly. I would travel many miles, I would travel to Oxford, if I thought I could find such an adorable figure. But the Don is now a brisk and efficient man of business, a paterfamilias with provision to make for his family. He has no time for folios and no inclination for port. Examination papers in the morning, and a glass of lemonade at dinner, are the notes of his leisure days. The belief in uncommercial knowledge has indeed died ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... "Ah, Paterfamilias, thank you. Yes, I'll think of it," and Kilian proposed that we should leave the table, as we all seemed to have appeased our appetites and nothing but civil war could ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... be pleasant to him to dress well, live well, and spend with open hand upon himself as well as others, no one will question. No one would ever wish it otherwise. Many a kindly spendthrift of twenty-one makes a prudent paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in his twenties showed a purposeless niggardliness, would at sixty grow into the most contemptible miser alive. There is something even in the thoughtless liberality of youth to which one's heart warms, even while one's ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... spend the Summer?" is usually discussed by paterfamilias, anxious mammas and uneasy children long before the summer solstice drives them from the pent-up confines of the busy metropolis to the pure air and quite recreation of country life. Many will visit the seaside, some will climb the mountains or explore the forests. Fashion, in ...
— Saratoga and How to See It • R. F. Dearborn

... makes his appointments here to take his bath; when the evening twilight falls, we see hopping along the edge the midwife toad, the male, who carries a cluster of eggs, the size of peppercorns, wrapped round his hindlegs: the genial paterfamilias has brought his precious packet from afar, to leave it in the water and afterwards retire under some flat stone, whence he will emit a sound like a tinkling bell. Lastly, when not croaking amid the foliage, the tree frogs indulge in the most graceful dives. And so, in May, as soon as it is ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... feast of St. Lubbock. The old Saints apparently owe a grudge to this latest addition to the calendar. How beastly it must be in town, with the slushy streets and the beshuttered shops! How depressing for Paterfamilias who arose at seven in the morning to set off with his wife and his brats and the family food-basket to catch some early excursion train! How much more depressing for him who has no train to catch, and nothing at all to do but worry through twelve ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various

... and the music fine; but all around me were happy groups of people, who could scarcely keep down merry Christmas long enough to do reverence to sacred Christmas. And nobody was alone but me. Every happy paterfamilias in his pew tantalized me, and the whole atmosphere of the place seemed so much better suited to every one else than me that I came away hating holidays worse than ever. Then I went to the play, and ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... was an excellent "paterfamilias," and took great care of children. His study was crammed with toys; he received us with great tenderness, and I remember well that he patted me on ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... liberal with my sweetmeats and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls, tell shy young persons this is the married people's boat, roguishly ask the abstracted if they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer Paterfamilias a cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about the age of mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a man before his mother; or perhaps it may occur to me, from the sensible expression of her face, that she is a person of good counsel, and I ask her earnestly if ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... the Pindaric kind; he was also an excellent statesman, and had rendered great services to his country. His morals were irreproachable, and I remember his telling me that the only way to give precepts was to do so by example. As a good citizen he was an admirable paterfamilias, for what greater proof could he give of his love of country than by presenting it with worthy subjects in his children, and such subjects result from a good education. His wife was still young, and bore on her features the marks of good nature and discretion. He had a charming daughter of about ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... I know, paterfamilias goes by the name of the “purse.” The more one sees of American households the more appropriate that name appears. Everything is expected of the husband, and he is accorded no definite place in return. He leaves the house at 8.30. ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... Paterfamilias, in his morning gown And wool-knit slippers, comfortable and pretty, To the radiant breakfast table trotted down, Inclined to have some frolic and be witty (As frolicsome as any in the City) And chaff ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... let us have it, this needful Ozone, In portable parcels! Ah me! No longer need Paterfamilias groan At the cost of that month ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... rubbish which we have had from Mr. Tomkins, we do protest and vow that this last cartload is" &c. Ah, poor Tomkins!—but most of all, ah! poor Mrs. Tomkins, and poor Emily, and Fanny, and Lucy, who have to sit by and see paterfamilias put ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... us the home of Benjamin West, who distinguished himself, to the disgust of broadbrims generally, as a landscape painter. In commencing his career, it is said he made use of the tail of a cat in lieu of a brush. Of course Benjamin's first attempts were on the sly, and he could not ask paterfamilias for money to buy a brush without encountering the good man's scorn. Whether, in the hour of his need and fresh enthusiasm, poor puss was led to the sacrificial altar, or whether he found her reposing by ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the proposal was successful.[220] At the same time divorce, which had probably never been impossible though it must have been rare,[221] began to be a common practice. We find to our surprise that the virtuous Aemilius Paullus, in other respects a model paterfamilias, put away his wife, and when asked why he did so, replied that a woman might be excellent in the eyes of her neighbours, but that only a husband could tell where the shoe pinched.[222] And in estimating the changed position of women within the family we must not forget the fact ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler



Words linked to "Paterfamilias" :   head of household, adult male, patriarch, man



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