ancestor

American  

[an-ses-ter, -suh-ster] / ˈæn sɛs tər, -sə stər /

noun

1. a person from whom one is descended; forebear; progenitor.

2. Biology. the actual or hypothetical form or stock from which an organism has developed or descended.

3. an object, idea, style, or occurrence serving as a prototype, forerunner, or inspiration to a later one.

   The balloon is an ancestor of the modern dirigible.

4. a person who serves as an influence or model for another; one from whom mental, artistic, spiritual, etc., descent is claimed.

   a philosophical ancestor.

5. Law. a person from whom an heir derives an inheritance.

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ancestor British  

/ ˈænsɛstə /

noun

1. (often plural) a person from whom another is directly descended, esp someone more distant than a grandparent; forefather

2. an early type of animal or plant from which a later, usually dissimilar, type has evolved

3. a person or thing regarded as a forerunner of a later person or thing

   the ancestor of the modern camera

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• ancestress
  noun

Etymology

Origin of ancestor

1250–1300; Middle English ancestre < Old French (with t developed between s and r ) < Latin antecessor antecessor

Explanation

An ancestor came before. Your grandmother's grandmother and any relative before her is one of your ancestors. Ante-, a common Latin prefix, means "before." Cedere is Latin for "to go." So, an ancestor is someone who has gone before us. Evolutionary biologists have advanced the theory that all life on earth descends from a common ancestor. Ancestor can also mean "prototype" or "forerunner." The abacus is a distant ancestor of today's supercomputers.

Example Sentences

I teach my students about Didion’s ancestor, Nancy Hardin Cornwall, who trekked westward with the Donner-Reed party in 1846.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 2026

"Octopuses are among the most evolutionarily distant animals from humans, as our last common ancestor was a worm that lived 350 to 500 million years ago," says Kieseler.

From Science Daily • Jun. 5, 2026

Congress created the Tenth Circuit in 1929, and it added the ancestor of the D.C.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 31, 2026

Canada, on the other hand, has done exactly the opposite: If you have a direct ancestor born across the northern border, no matter how far back, you probably qualify.

From Salon • May 31, 2026

In the heart of the bayou Abigail encountered my ancestor, another escaped slave girl named Santana.

From "Split the Sky" by Marie Arnold

Related Words

• forebear
• forefather
• founder