Penates

American  

[puh-ney-teez, -nah-] / pəˈneɪ tiz, -ˈnɑ- /

Or penates

plural noun

Roman Religion.

1. gods who watched over the home or community to which they belonged: originally, two deities of the storeroom.

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penates British  

/ pəˈnɑːtiːz /

plural noun

1. See lares and penates

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Etymology

Origin of Penates

1505–15; < Latin Penātēs, akin to penus stock of provisions

Example Sentences

There were also public Lares and Penates, who did for the city what the others did for the family.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

Every Roman family had a Lar, who was the spirit of an ancestor, and several Penates, gods of the hearth and guardians of the storehouse.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

The most prominent and revered of them all were the Lares and Penates.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

Into the trunk went most of her clothes; some of her toilet articles; her half-dozen books; her stationery; all her slender Lares and Penates.

From Out of the Air by Gillmore, Inez Haynes

Sacrarium, sā-krā′ri-um, n. the part of a church where the altar is, the sanctuary: in ancient Rome, any sacred place, the place where the Penates were stored.—n.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various