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.

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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

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

These small animals live on the seafloor and share a very distant common ancestor with humans.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 21, 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

Thanks to an ancestor who wished to never feel the agony of love again, any man the Owens women fall in love with ends up dead.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026

Calvin says, “Well, it is a holy cow. Sort of. It’s called an aurochs. It’s like an ox. Or the ancestor to our cattle. But the aurochs is extinct now. You know. Gone forever.”

From "The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle" by Leslie Connor

“I need to be true to myself and my ancestors who resisted colonisation, and fought for a freedom that I enjoy today in Ireland,” Rowe continued.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026

The Naga will then accompany the remains of their ancestors home, with some returning for the first time in more than a century.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026

Brian Guillermo Dyson was born Sept. 7, 1935, into a family whose British ancestors emigrated to Argentina in the 19th century.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026

As twilight settled on a hillside by the river near the eastern Ukrainian front, two soldiers exchanged wedding vows during a Slavic ritual honouring ancestors and fallen warriors.

From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026

Hourson Alsvindr, back and forth across the valley, feeling her ancestors down to her bones.

From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack

Related Words

• forebear
• forefather
• founder