Definition of "patriarch" []

• A man who rules a family, clan, or tribe. (noun)
• Bible One of the antediluvian progenitors of the human race, from Adam to Noah. (noun)
• Bible Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or any of Jacob's 12 sons, the eponymous progenitors of the 12 tribes of Israel. (noun)
• Used formerly as a title for the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. (noun)
• Roman Catholic Church A bishop who holds the highest episcopal rank after the pope. (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 first of these Jacobite bishops (they did not take the title patriarch) of"
• "Katholikos of Echmiadzin gave the Armenian Bishop of Jerusalem the right to consecrate chrism; thereupon the bishop assumed the title patriarch and began ordaining bishops."
• "The head of the Cypriot Church has never had the title patriarch, but only that of Archbishop."