ancestry
Americannoun
-
ancestries
plural
noun
-
lineage or descent, esp when ancient, noble, or distinguished
-
ancestors collectively
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected 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.
See Examples For:
Africa is most famous for spectacular hominid fossils that reveal our own ancestry.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026
In 2008, during a concert at the Cardiff International Arena, Parton reportedly revealed her Welsh ancestry to fans in the crowd.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
Throughout, “Curved Air” demonstrates why ancestry must remain part of the medical conversation—and need not fuel fears of discrimination.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
At the same time, it can create groups that are highly similar in both ancestry and biological function, making them easier to distinguish from neighboring populations.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 7, 2026
In the back of Judge Lew Fielding’s courtroom sat twenty-four islanders of Japanese ancestry, dressed in the clothes they reserved for formal occasions.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
But Prof Kumaresan says that more research is needed to properly establish the ancestries of Keeladi's residents.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2025
Census making it easier in 2020 to identify multiple racial and ethnic ancestries, the percentage of multiracial Americans blossomed to 33.8 million.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2024
He hopes to similarly investigate how these different non-European ancestries influence brain genetics.
From Science Magazine ● May 23, 2024
And while human beings of all races and ancestries are more than 99% genetically identical, even small differences in genes can spell big differences in health outcomes.
From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2024
BUT Love has more to do with his own possible and probable posterities, than with the once living but now impossible ancestries in the past.
From Pierre; or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
