paterfamilias. noun. The head of a family/household.

While going into words with classic origins, let's scoot over to Rome for a bit. As can probably be suspected from the parts of the word, paterfamilias is literally "father of the family". Head of the family, master of the house... that whole deal. Of course, being Romans, they had a legal ground to come up with the term: the paterfamilias of a household pretty much had power of life and death (called "patria potestas") over everyone under him - his wife, his children, everyone.

Being a really old-fashioned and kinda pretentious way to talk about the head of a family, paterfamilias can really work to set up character dynamics with people, both literal and figurative. That, or it just sounds neat.

Married... With Children tells the story of a downtrodden paterfamilias and his poor Chicago clan.

All eyes looked up to Mr. Gates as he walked through - our leader, our paterfamilias.

"You're looking for my dad? Sorry, you'll have to come again... our respected paterfamilias is currently busy screwing his mistress..."

Something like that.

(Adjective form: paterfamiliar; Adverb form: paterfamiliarly.)