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

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Etymology

Origin of ancestor

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

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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

Additional analyses of ancient animal distributions pointed toward northern Africa and the Middle East as the most likely geographic home of the common ancestor of all living apes.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 1, 2026

"A reimagined Citroën 2CV should give a big nod to its ancestor - especially on price and design simplicity as well as visual cues," he says.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

Paul Theroux’s travelogue takes him to the land of an ancestor who arrived by “dumb luck and good timing.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026

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

For a blanket in my cold little room, SS-Hauptsturmführer Amadeus von Linden, I would without remorse or hesitation rat on my heroic ancestor William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland.

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

“This work represents more than land conservation. It represents our history, our identity, our connection, our ancestors and our responsibility to the future generations.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2026

Our ancestors crossed the Atlantic for land, and for land they went west on their Conestoga wagons.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

This ancient environment supported enormous elephants and some of the region's earliest human populations, revealing how access to water and natural resources may have helped our ancestors survive and move between continents.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 29, 2026

"Some of our ancestors were very skilled observers," noted coauthor Dr. Meng Jin of the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2026

He couldn’t venture into another clan’s bone-ground without angering their ancestors ...

From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver

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Related Words

• forebear
• forefather
• founder

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