Tharavad
Tharavad, also spelled as Tharavadu (ⓘ) (തറവാട്), is the Malayalam word for the ancestral home of Nair aristocratic families in Kerala, which usually served as the common residence for the matrilineal joint family under the Marumakkathayam system practiced in the state, in which males inherited through the female line. Parallel familial compounds encompassing a patrilineally-defined family, were known as Illams or Manas for Nambudiri Brahmins. The German linguist Hermann Gundert, in his Malayalam—English dictionary published in 1872, defines a Tharavadu as, "An ancestral residence of land-owners and kings", and also as, "A house, chiefly of noblemen". By extension, the word refers not just to the family's house but to the extended family that shares that house. It was classically the residence of Jenmimar, but contemporary usage of the word is now more generic to all social classes and religions in Kerala.