patron saint

Questions about patron saint

What does patron saint mean?

patron saint means "a saint who is considered to be a defender of some group or nation".

Is patron saint a common word?

patron saint is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for patron saint come from Princeton University’s WordNet. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.