polygynous
1
9.9
- adjective
- /pəˈlɪdʒɪnəs/
:
polígamo
- The wives of a deceased, polygynous man together inherit one-eighth of their husband's wealth, which is divided among them.
- polygynous family
- polygynous marriage
- polygynous man
Examples
-
The mean family size for the polygynous families, including all the tipis of each family, is 10.1.
Academic text (1991) -
Why, then, were polygynous groups not more common?
Academic text (2010) -
I also discovered that polygynous groups were more likely to have the larger sleeping trees.
Academic text (2010) -
Most importantly, we have seen in this sample the developmental cycle of the polygynous family.
Academic text (1991) -
Roughly 85 percent of documented cultures have polygynous mating.
Academic text (2013) -
Across cultures, the most common mating system is what's known as a polygynous mating system: one man, multiple women.
Academic text (2013) -
As discussed previously, polygynous practices were key to indigenous political systems based on marital alliances.
Academic text (1999) -
The sample included 114 children from polygynous families and 881 children from monogamous families.
Academic text (1993) -
The Fon, Igbo, and Lovedu shared certain principles of kin organization: all practiced polygynous marriage and employed classificatory kinship terminology.
Academic text (1998) -
In a polygynous marriage, a man may share his life and resources with several wives.
Synonyms
5
7.7
Having more than one wife or husband at the same time
1
7.5
Having more than one romantic or sexual partner at the same time
Surface Forms
Morphology
polygynous = polygyny (semi-transparent) = poly + gyn + ous
The adjective is regularly formed from the technical noun 'polygyny' by adding '-ous', but the base noun is specialized and not very accessible to general learners.
Etymology
Polygynous comes from the Greek parts poly- meaning 'many' and gyn- meaning 'woman' or 'wife', and you can see poly- in familiar words like polygon ('many sides'). So, polygynous describes a man or a society that has more than one wife at the same time.