Meaning of household deity | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A minor tutelary deity watching over a household, usually conceived as a protective ancestral spirit or genius loci.
2. An icon or patron saint: a revered individual within a group.
   figuratively

Equivalents

Examples

“[…] Ganesh (Pillayar in Tamil), here is not associated with militant Hinduism; Pillayar is a lovable household deity here, a free and familiar god who craves no chauvinistic devotion.”

“[O]n this day, as throughout the New Year's period, rites of divination for the following year were performed along with rites for the spirits of ancestors and other household deities.”

“In our day Roy Basler's The Lincoln Legend and Lloyd Lewis' Myths After Lincoln have demonstrated that the most popular and admired of all American heroes has long ago been made superhistorical in myth; he has become, at least north of the Potomac, a household deity.”

“Sigmund Freud has replaced Darwin and/or Hegel as the household deity of sterilization.”

“Thus everyone, from Byron to Macaulay, who presented their cards or waited to be announced at Holland House must have been conscious of [Charles James] Fox as a household deity.”

CEFR level