\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.