A leader or ruler of a tribe or clan; a tribal chief or patriarch who holds supreme authority.
From Greek 'genos' (tribe, race, kind) combined with 'arkhein' (to rule), literally meaning 'tribe-ruler.' This Greek compound entered English in the 16th-17th centuries through academic and historical texts.
A genarch was literally a 'tribe-ruler'—the Greeks created this word to describe those powerful tribal leaders in distant lands, blending 'genos' (tribe) and 'arch' (rule), the same root we see in 'monarch' and 'anarchy.'
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