matrician

English

Etymology 1

By analogy with patrician

Noun

matrician (plural matricians)

1. A female patrician; an upper class matriarch
   • 1854, The Model Housekeeper, The Friend, page 358:

     In the present state of society we need not go far to find many a man who would give all the waltzes and polkas that a matrician genius ever invented, and throw all the new-fangled flourishes upon piano and guitar into the bargain, for healthful breakfasts [...]

   • 1992, Barbara Jean Monroe, Mother wit: American women's literary humor:

     Instead, Bettina traces her lineage through "Foremother," whose oil portrait watches over the homestead; she is described as a "matrician" who "in life as in the portrait, . . . approved of nothing"

   • 2011, Christopher B. Ansberry, Be Wise, My Son, and Make My Heart Glad: An Exploration of the Courtly Nature of the Book of Proverbs, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 62:

     In essence, Wisdom's home serves as a multivalent symbol that illuminates her indispensable value as well as her noble status; it identifies Wisdom's fundamental role in the establishment of a household and depicts her as a wealthy matrician

2. (anthropology) A group or clan claiming matrilineal descent from a (usually legendary) female ancestor
   • 1967, New Guinea and Australia, the Pacific and South-east Asia:

     The society consists of a number of matricians which, as each is exogamous, are linked together by ties of kinship and marriage. This sort of society is very common throughout the islands off the mainland.

   • 1981, Roger M. Keesing, Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective, Holt McDougal:

     However, the household was controlled by its senior women; because of the residence pattern, the men were unrelated outsiders who belonged to different matricians.

   • 1982, Ron E. Roberts, Douglas E. Brintnall, Reinventing inequality: an inquiry into society and stratification, Schenkman Books:

     In order of rank, the matricians were the pig, dog, snake, and iguana clans.

Adjective

matrician (comparative more matrician, superlative most matrician)

1. Upper class and matriarchal
   • 1853, The Quarterly Review, page 353:

     Forfend that her stern shade ever resent a comparison with such frail creatures ! She carries the historic ' prowde countenance of the Geraldines ' of her day. Aristocratic, matrician, and placid, though deeply traced with sorrow

   • 2007, John Lehmann, Alan Ross, London Magazine:

     Her father is a successful businessman and her rather forceful mother a philosophy don; and Florence's life in a matrician and intellectual North Oxford household - you feel sure it's in one of those substantial brick crescents next to the Parks - is vivid in its intricate particularity.

   • 2012, Meagan McKinney, The Lawman Meets His Bride, Harlequin, →ISBN:

     Quinn could only smile at the old dame's manner. Just as Connie had told him, she was immediately reigning over everything with matrician authority.

Etymology 2

matrix +‎ -ian

Noun

matrician (plural matricians)

1. A mathematician who studies matrices
   • 1940, Electrical Engineering:

     It is quite apparent why a matrician missed this generalization, because his creed is to build from low-order matrices high-order arrays.

   • 2007, Ky M. Vu, The ARIMA and VARIMA Time Series: Their Modelings, Analyses and Applications, AuLac Technologies Inc., →ISBN, page 462:

     The study of the pencil is helpful not only to matricians for a more efficient calculation of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, but also to control theorists for the analysis and design of their control systems.

Adjective

matrician (not comparable)

1. Pertaining to matrices
   • 1979, G. S. Holister, Developments in Stress Analysis--1, Elsevier Science & Technology:

     For the j-circle method a convenient and comprehensive book is that by Kuske where the interested reader will find all the detail but it is not presented with a matrician calculus.

   • 1983, Brian Rooks, Developments in Robotics, 1983, →ISBN:

     A matrician method (method of nodal displacement) allows to obtain directly the stiffness matrix and the center of motion.