Pa`tri*ar"chal (?), a. [Cf. F.
patriarcal.] 1. Of or pertaining to a
patriarch or to patriarchs; possessed by, or subject to, patriarchs;
as, patriarchal authority or jurisdiction; a patriarchal
see; a patriarchal church.
2. Characteristic of a patriarch;
venerable.
About whose patriarchal knee
Late the little children clung.
Tennyson.
3. (Ethnol.) Having an organization of
society and government in which the head of the family exercises
authority over all its generations.
Patriarchal cross (Her.), a cross, the
shaft of which is intersected by two transverse beams, the upper one
being the smaller. See Illust. (2) of Cross. --
Patriarchal dispensation, the divine
dispensation under which the patriarchs lived before the law given by
Moses.