adjective
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ancestral
1425–75; late Middle English aunce ( s ) trel < Middle French, equivalent to ancestre ancestor + -el -al 1
Explanation
Ancestral things have been around so long that they once belonged to your ancestors, the family members who lived before your grandparents were born. Your ancestral home is the place your great-grandparents or great-great-uncle once lived. You can also use this adjective to describe things that someone inherited from ancestors, like your friend's ancestral beach cottage or your mom's ancestral set of silverware. Ancestral comes from the Late Latin antecessor, "predecessor," or literally "forgoer," from the root antecedere, "to precede."
Vocabulary lists containing ancestral
"Earthquake"
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for November 27–December 3, 2021
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for April 2–April 8, 2022
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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.
In late September, a Kenyan court ordered a pause to construction after more than 100 Lamu residents sued alleging that the refinery threatened ancestral land where they had farmed and buried their families for generations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
The advanced method is known as ancestral sequence reconstruction, which was pioneered by Joseph Thornton, a former UO scientist whose old laboratory space is now occupied by Barber's group.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 28, 2026
Scientists track distinct “runs” of salmon in the Sacramento River, each named for when the fish return from the Pacific and swim upriver to their ancestral streams to spawn.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Ireland and the United States have long been close allies, partly because of their common ancestral ties.
From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026
More than eight million villagers were forcibly removed from their ancestral homes in a Joint US and South Vietnam program.
From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge
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.
