Family plays a very important role in each and everyone’s life.  Here in this chapter, we will talk about words related to someone whom you value the most in your life might be your father, mother or siblings.  I’m sure you will find some words here to use in your day-to-day life!!

Faternity

Meaning: A male student’s society in a university or college or a group of people sharing a common profession or interests or friendship and mutual support within a group.

A men’s organization in a high school or college, often labelled with Greek letters (the Gamma Delta Epsilon Fraternity); or any group of people of similar interests or profession (the medical fraternity, the financial fraternity)If you have observed going out that there are fraternity clubs say beer fraternity clubs etc.Jacopo Niccolini, one of a religious fraternity dedicated to consoling the last hours of condemned men, remained with him.Himself became a member of the fraternity of Linen Armourers, or Merchant Taylors, and other distinguished persons followed his example.

Sorority

Meaning: a society for female students in a university or college, typically for social purposes.(a women’s organization in high school or college, again usually Greek-lettered; or any women’s social club.)
The first comment on the reddit thread is also pretty entertaining: “Similar decreases in resistance occur when wine is poured on sorority girls.
It’s good to reserve a table in your school’s dining hall or go around to all the fraternities and sororities on campus and ask them for support.
She was like a sorority girl ready to dish with her friends.

Paternity

Meaning: (especially in legal contexts) the state of being someone’s father or paternal origin.(fatherhood, as to question someone’s paternity, to file a paternity suit in order to collect child support from the assumed, accused, or self-acknowledged father.

The adjective is paternal, fatherly. Paternalism is the philosophy or system of governing a country: or of managing a business or institution so that the citizens, employees, or staff are treated in a manner suggesting a father-children relationship. (Such a system sounds, and often is, benign and protective, but plays havoc with the initiative, independence, and creativity of those in subordinate roles.) The adjective is paternalistic.
If you go abroad you will see that there the father to be, also gets paternity leaves from office for six to seven months along with the mother of the child. In India it has not prevail till now.Once the paternity results are announced, Rick will know if he needs to pay child support for the next eighteen years.The king will not acknowledge the paternity of his mistress’s son.

Patriarch

Meaning:  the male head of a family or tribe. Or any of those biblical figures regarded as fathers of the human race, especially Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their forefathers, or the sons of Jacob.

(a venerable, fatherlike old man; an old man in a ruling, fatherlike position. Here pater, patris is combined with the Greek root archein, to rule. The adjective is patriarchal ,the system is a patriarchy)

His father was a factory owner of some means, whose family came from a stock of Old Believers, who had acknowledged the authority of the Russian Orthodox Church while keeping the ancient ritual for which their forefathers had endured persecution since the days of Patriarch Nikon.

In Ethiopia, too, there were Catholic with less extensive powers, subject to the patriarch of Alexandria.

Patrimony

Meaning: property inherited from one’s father or male ancestor

Alex is thinking to use invest the entire amount he received from his dad in shares and stock market.

An inheritance from one’s father. The -mony comes from the same root that gives us money, namely Juno Moneta, the Roman goddess who guarded the temples of finance. The adjective is patrimonial.

The loss of his patrimony, however, thanks no doubt to his mother’s providence, did not prevent Propertius from receiving a superior education.

Two years later Victor Emmanuel was master of the whole country, except Venice and the “Patrimony of St Peter.”

Patronymic

Meaning: a name derived from the name of a father or ancestor

A name formed on the father’s name, like Johnson (son of John), Martinson, Aaronson, etc. The word combines pater, piztris with Greek onyma, name.

Onyma plus the Greek prefix syn-, with or together, forms synonym, a word of the same name (or meaning), etymologically “a together name.” Onyma plus the prefix antiagainst, forms antonym, a word of opposite meaning, etymologically “an against name.” Onyma plus Greek homos, the same, forms homonym, a word that sounds like another but has a different meaning and spelling, like barebear, way-weigh, to-too-two, etc., etymologically “a same name.” A homonym is more accurately· called a homophone, a combination of homos, the same, and phone, sound.

The race of Somerled continued to rule the islands, and from a younger son of the same potentate sprang the lords of Lorne, who took the patronymic of Macdougall.

The statement of the scholiast is evidently a mere inference from the patronymic form of the word.In many cases indeed there is good reason for doubting whether the name is a patronymic at all.
The king will not acknowledge the paternity of his mistress’s son.

Uxorious

Meaning: doting upon, foolishly fond of, or affectionately submissive toward one’s wife.

an adjective describing a man who excessively, even absurdly, caters to, dotes on, worships, and submits to the most outlandish or outrageous demands of, his wife. This word is not synonymous with henpecked, as the henpecked

husband is dominated by his wife, perhaps . Because of his own fear or weakness, while the uxorious husband is dominated only by his neurosis, and quite likely the wife finds his uxoriousness comical or a pain in the neck.

(There can, indeed, be too much of a good thing!)

uxorial-pertaining to, characteristic of, or befitting, a wife, as uxorial duties, privileges, attitudes, etc

Remember uxorious is different from Henpecked , henpecked is a man who is dominated by his wife. While uxorious is someone who is in so much love with his wife that he makes sure he fulfills all his wife’s demand . In Hindi its called – “ joru ka gulam’’

The uxorious man gave his wife a foot massage as soon as he realized she was not able to walk because she was tired.

Yet he became deeply attached to his wife, and proved in fact nearly as uxorious as his father.

Maternity

Meaning:  the period during pregnancy and shortly after childbirth

Alice is going to give birth to a baby, she is now on maternity leave. Alice is planning to spent this maternity leave with her parents.

Magee, by agreement the maternity hospital of the university of Pittsburgh, is perhaps the most modern and complete maternity hospital in America.
The general manager was on maternity leave, and she rifled through several drawers before locating a bottle of painkillers.

Matriarch

Meaning: a woman who is the head of a family or tribe

Ria’s matriarch grandmother scolded her everyday for not getting up early in the morning and punished her every time she  woke up late.

(The mother-ruler; the “mother person” that controls a large household, tribe, or country. This word, like patriarch, is built on the root archein, to rule. During

the reign of Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria, England was a.)

The breakfast room had cleared out an hour before, but the patient matriarch kept her coffee cup full and left her alone.
She almost lost her stomach at the innocent question from the middle-aged matriarch of the bed and breakfast.

Matron

Meaning:  a married woman, especially a dignified and sober middle-aged one.

The salesman was clever and for impressing the old woman, he asked the matron whether her mother was at home.

(an older woman, one sufficiently mature to be a mother. The adjective matronly

conjures up for many people a picture of a woman no longer in the glow of youth and possibly with a bit of added weight in the wrong places, so this word should be used with caution; it may be hazardous to your health if the lady you are so describing is of a tempestous nature, or is a virago.)

I hope you’ll play both Wedding Planner and Matron of honor.
Mrs. Hopkins has been a matron at the Perkins Institution for twenty years, and during the time that Miss Sullivan was a pupil there she was like a mother to her.

Alma Mater 

Meaning:  the school, college, or university that one once attended

Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, or a song or hymn associated with a school. The phrase is variously translated as “nourishing mother”

etymologically, “soul mother”; actually, the school or college from

which one has graduated, and which in a sense is one’s intellectual mother.

All of the graduates participated in singing the school’s Alma Mater at graduation, as to show their appreciation and pride in their school.

The Harvard fight song is an example of an alma mater.

Matrimony

Meaning: the state of being married; marriage.

marriage. Though this word is similar to patrimony in spelling, it does not refer to money. As patrimony does; wiless, that is, you are cynical enough_ to believe that people. marry .for money. As the language was growing, marriage
and children went hand in hand-it is therefore not surprising that the word for marriage should be built on the Latin root for mother. Of course, times have changed, but the sexist nature of the English language has ·not. The noun suffix -mony indicates state, condition, or result, as in sanctimony, parsimony, etc. The adjective is matrimonial.