patriphagy

P3A1T1R1I1P3H4A1G2Y4

noun

The act of consuming one's own father, either by a person or another organism.

Scrabble 21

Meanings

nounpatriphagy (uncountable)
  1. rareuncountableThe act of consuming one's own father, either by a person or another organism.
    3 more examples

    His was perhaps rather a practical rather than a speculative bent, but let us not forget his unflinching faith in the future, and let us remember, too, that in his passing he helped to shape the basic social institutions of parricide and patriphagy which give continuity both to the community and to the individual.

    1994 [1960], Roy Lewis, The Evolution Man, or, How I Ate My Father, Vintage Books, page 214

    Cannibalism is known to occur within, as well as among, different life stages, including adults consuming eggs, juveniles, or other adults, juveniles consuming eggs or other juveniles (Elgar & Crespi 1992), and even, rarely, filial cannibalism wherein adults consume their own young (Bartlett 1987, Stevens 1992) and matriphagy/patriphagy where young consume their own parents (Toyama 1999, Kim et al. 2000, Suzuki et al. 2005, Tizo-Pedroso & Del-Claro 2005).

    2013, Robert Kent Richardson, Ecomorphology and Mating Behavior of Two Species of Night-stalking Tiger Beetles, Omus audouini and O. dejeanii, Portland State University, page 101

    The tale of Trajan’s family is preceded by a tale of three ships full of Vespasian’s Jewish captives from Jerusalem sent into sexual slavery in Rome, who committed suicide by throwing themselves into the sea while reciting a verse from the Psalms, and the tale of the dire conditions during Hadrian’s invasion of Palestine that caused such severe hunger that it led to inadvertent patriphagy.

    2020, Galit Hasan-Rokem, “Alexandria in the Literary Memory of the Rabbis: The Failure of Cultural Translation and the Textual Powers of Women”, in Alison Salvesen, Sarah Pearce, Miriam Frenkel, editors, Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period, Brill, page 386

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

patriphagy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patriphagy

MLA

“patriphagy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patriphagy. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “patriphagy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/patriphagy.

Source: patriphagy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.