ancestor

American  

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

noun

• ancestors
  plural

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.

---

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

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• ancestress
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• ancestors
  plural

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

See Examples For:

ancestor ancestors

About 160 million years ago, near the end of the Jurassic Period, the common ancestor of all placental mammals, whose young develop in the womb, appeared.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026

It begins as a search for other Therouxs in the area around Yamaska, Quebec—the hamlet where his ancestor Antoine dropped anchor with his wife, Marguerite, whom he’d acquired along the way.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026

Tishler’s new boss, George W. Merck, was heir to a family enterprise dating to 1668, when an ancestor opened an apothecary in Darmstadt, Germany.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

It is unclear exactly how the sculpture came to be in the Cotswolds, but the family presume it was bought at auction by an ancestor in the mid 1900s.

From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026

The cause of all the misfortunes was held to be an ancestor, a King of Lydia named Tantalus, who brought upon himself a most terrible punishment by a most wicked deed.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

“Whatever chains there were to the past suffering of my ancestors, they were completely broken,” he said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026

Modern British royals have expressed remorse for the brutal slave trade that enriched their ancestors, but like the UK government have not issued an official apology for the slave trade.

From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026

In “Animate,” Michael Bond takes readers back 15,000 years to a time when the lives of our ancestors were dominated by wild animals in a way unrecognizable to most people today.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

Versions reconstructed from more recent mammalian ancestors, dating back a few million years, became progressively more effective.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026

The ancestors were as much a part of the family as the children, and to abandon them would have been wicked beyond belief.

From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer

Related Words

• forebear
• forefather
• founder