Meaning of lares and penates | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The household deities of ancient Rome, respectively overseeing the family and its house and storerooms.
   Roman, plural, plural-only
2. One's prized possessions, considered as the protectors or symbols of one's household.
   figuratively, plural, plural-only

Examples

“The particular gods of the household were its lares and penates.”

“I am returned to my own Lares and Penates—to my dogs and cats.”

“Dissenters came to South Carolina in the decade 1680-1690, some of them persons of means who might have brought with them their lares and penates.”

““Please understand me now—if it were nothing more than muffled tones and scars on your Aeolus's bellows there, merely some calcified foreign matter, then I would send you packing to rejoin your lares and penates, and not worry one white more about you.””

CEFR level