phratry
Americannoun
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a grouping of clans or other social units within a tribe.
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(in ancient Greece) a subdivision of a phyle.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of phratry
1745–55; < Greek phrātría, equivalent to phrātr-, stem of phrātḗr clansman (akin to brother ) + -ia -y 3
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In electing a sachem the phratry council also came into action.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Friedrich
These held a phratry council which in a body addressed itself to the other phratry, in order to prevail on the latter to assemble in council and effect a condonation of the matter.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Friedrich
We take the former first, dealing with the clan-family and the phratry, which are together the self-maintaining unit of society, with the general relief of the poor, with hospitality, and with vagrancy.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8 "Chariot" to "Chatelaine" by Various
Outside the self-sustaining phratry was the stranger, including the wayfarer and the vagrant; and partly merged in these classes was the beggar, the recognized recipient of the alms of the community.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8 "Chariot" to "Chatelaine" by Various
Zeus, the god of social life, was worshipped by the phratry.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 8 "Chariot" to "Chatelaine" by Various
People who, like the Arunta, have lost memory of the very names of the phratries, cannot conceivably remember the nature of the origin of exogamy.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 2 "Fairbanks, Erastus" to "Fens" by Various
On these lines the prohibition to infringe the totem taboo by marriage within the totem name is intelligible, but the system of phratries has yet to be accounted for.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 2 "Fairbanks, Erastus" to "Fens" by Various
There were the gentes, tribes, and phratries, or brotherhoods, that still existed, and the individual entered the state in civil capacity through his family.
From History of Human Society by Blackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)
In the epics of Homer we generally find the Greek tribes combined into small nations, but so that their gentes, phratries and tribes retained their full independence.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Friedrich
The gentes, phratries and tribes, the members of which now were dispersed all over Attica and completely intermixed, had thus become unavailable as political groups.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Friedrich
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
