household deity

plural household deities

1. human sciencesA minor tutelary deity watching over a household, usually conceived as a protective ancestral spirit or genius loci.

   [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.

   2005, Michael Como, “Silkworms and Consorts in Nara Japan”, in Asian Folklore Studies, volume 64, number 1, page 127

   1 more example

   […] 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.

   1990, V. Geetha with S. V. Rajadurai, “Communal Violence in Madras: A Portent?”, in Economic and Political Weekly, volume 25, number 38, →ISSN, page 2122

   Synonyms: house god, household god, lares and penates, lar, penates

2. figurativelyAn icon or patron saint: a revered individual within a group.

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

   1967, Donald K. Pickens, “The Sterilization Movement: The Search for Purity in Mind and State”, in Phylon, volume 28, number 1, page 94

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   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.

   1954, Marshall Fishwick, “American Heroes:Columbia's Path”, in Western Folklore, volume 13, number 2/3, page 155

   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.

   1970, N.B. Penny, “The Whig Cult of Fox in Early Nineteenth-Century Sculpture”, in Past & Present, number 70, page 101

   Synonyms: exemplar