ancestry
Americannoun
noun
-
lineage or descent, esp when ancient, noble, or distinguished
-
ancestors collectively
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ancestry
1300–50; Middle English, equivalent to ancestre ancestor + -y 3; replacing Middle English aunce ( s ) trie < Anglo-French
Explanation
Have a family tree hanging on the wall? Then you know a bit about your ancestry, or family history and lineage. If you think ancestry sounds like ancestor, then you're headed in the right direction. Ancestry is basically a history of ancestors, a trail of where your family started and all the descendants that followed. But ancestry goes much further than just your great-great-grand uncle's brother. You can also use the word ancestry to refer to the background of things other than people — such as the ancestry of a building or the ancestry of a nation.
Vocabulary lists containing ancestry
It's All in the Family
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Central America and the Caribbean - Introductory
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Central America and the Caribbean - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Goodwin agrees with Konstantin Kisin that Englishness is related to ancestry.
From BBC • Jun. 5, 2026
The culture secretary, who is of mixed Indian and British heritage, has no truck with the idea that nationality has to be related to ancestry.
From BBC • Jun. 5, 2026
These guys there could trace their ancestry back to 100 miles from where I grew up.
From Los Angeles Times • May 29, 2026
The genetic evidence points to slow and regionally varied shifts in ancestry rather than sudden population replacement.
From Science Daily • May 19, 2026
In the late 1970s several scientists realized that an ethnic group’s mitochondrial DNA could provide clues to its ancestry.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
