household deity
- noun
- /ˈhaʊshoʊld ˈdiːəti/
- Literature
:
deidad del hogar
- As tradition dictates, every festival begins with prayers to the household deity.
Examples
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The image of the household deity was kept in a special shrine near the kitchen.
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They worship a household deity every evening.
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Many families place offerings to their household deity to ensure safety and prosperity.
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In India, many families have a household deity they honor.
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In ancient cultures, families often honored a household deity to ensure protection and prosperity in their home.
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She lit incense every week to show her respect for the household deity that watched over her family.
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The children learned stories about their household deity, which their grandparents claimed had kept their home safe for generations.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently built from 'household' (relating to a home or family) + 'deity' (a being worshipped), so a learner can infer it denotes a god or spirit associated with and protecting the home. This noun-noun compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows normal English modification, making it predictable to a B1 learner who knows the constituents.
Etymology
The noun household deity comes from the image of a small deity or spirit kept in the household, often on a tiny shelf near the kitchen where families left food or small gifts. So the phrase now means 'a spirit who protects and watches over the home'.
