Definition of "matriarch" []

• A woman who rules a family, clan, or tribe. (noun)
• A woman who dominates a group or an activity. (noun)
• A highly respected woman who is a mother. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The word matriarch could have been coined to describe my mother: now 89, she is the last living child of her parents, mother of five adult children, grandmother of 12 and has recently acquired three great-granddaughters."
• "But the matriarch is the glue that binds the entire family together and the inheritor of the late Jindal’s political constituency."
• "A surprised Southern matriarch is confronted by her family at an intervention ...."