matrician

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English

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Etymology 1

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By analogy with patrician

Noun

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matrician (plural matricians)

  1. A female patrician; an upper class matriarch
    • 1854, The Model Housekeeper, The Friend, page 358:
      In the present state of society we need not go far to find many a man who would give all the waltzes and polkas that a matrician genius ever invented, and throw all the new-fangled flourishes upon piano and guitar into the bargain, for healthful breakfasts [...]
    • 1992, Barbara Jean Monroe, Mother wit: American women's literary humor:
      Instead, Bettina traces her lineage through "Foremother," whose oil portrait watches over the homestead; she is described as a "matrician" who "in life as in the portrait, . . . approved of nothing"
    • 2011, Christopher B. Ansberry, Be Wise, My Son, and Make My Heart Glad: An Exploration of the Courtly Nature of the Book of Proverbs, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 62:
      In essence, Wisdom's home serves as a multivalent symbol that illuminates her indispensable value as well as her noble status; it identifies Wisdom's fundamental role in the establishment of a household and depicts her as a wealthy matrician
  2. (anthropology) A group or clan claiming matrilineal descent from a (usually legendary) female ancestor
    • 1967, New Guinea and Australia, the Pacific and South-east Asia:
      The society consists of a number of matricians which, as each is exogamous, are linked together by ties of kinship and marriage. This sort of society is very common throughout the islands off the mainland.
    • 1981, Roger M. Keesing, Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective, Holt McDougal:
      However, the household was controlled by its senior women; because of the residence pattern, the men were unrelated outsiders who belonged to different matricians.
    • 1982, Ron E. Roberts, Douglas E. Brintnall, Reinventing inequality: an inquiry into society and stratification, Schenkman Books:
      In order of rank, the matricians were the pig, dog, snake, and iguana clans.

Adjective

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matrician (comparative more matrician, superlative most matrician)

  1. Upper class and matriarchal
    • 1853, The Quarterly Review, page 353:
      Forfend that her stern shade ever resent a comparison with such frail creatures ! She carries the historic ' prowde countenance of the Geraldines ' of her day. Aristocratic, matrician, and placid, though deeply traced with sorrow
    • 2007, John Lehmann, Alan Ross, London Magazine:
      Her father is a successful businessman and her rather forceful mother a philosophy don; and Florence's life in a matrician and intellectual North Oxford household - you feel sure it's in one of those substantial brick crescents next to the Parks - is vivid in its intricate particularity.
    • 2012, Meagan McKinney, The Lawman Meets His Bride, Harlequin, →ISBN:
      Quinn could only smile at the old dame's manner. Just as Connie had told him, she was immediately reigning over everything with matrician authority.

Etymology 2

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From matrix +‎ -ian.

Noun

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matrician (plural matricians)

  1. A mathematician who studies matrices
    • 1940, Electrical Engineering:
      It is quite apparent why a matrician missed this generalization, because his creed is to build from low-order matrices high-order arrays.
    • 2007, Ky M. Vu, The ARIMA and VARIMA Time Series: Their Modelings, Analyses and Applications, AuLac Technologies Inc., →ISBN, page 462:
      The study of the pencil is helpful not only to matricians for a more efficient calculation of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, but also to control theorists for the analysis and design of their control systems.

Adjective

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matrician (not comparable)

  1. Pertaining to matrices
    • 1979, G. S. Holister, Developments in Stress Analysis--1, Elsevier Science & Technology:
      For the j-circle method a convenient and comprehensive book is that by Kuske where the interested reader will find all the detail but it is not presented with a matrician calculus.
    • 1983, Brian Rooks, Developments in Robotics, 1983, →ISBN:
      A matrician method (method of nodal displacement) allows to obtain directly the stiffness matrix and the center of motion.