ancestry
Americannoun
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.
Speaking in Chicago in 1858, Lincoln argued that those who couldn’t trace their ancestry to the revolutionary generation could nonetheless look to the Declaration’s insistence that “all men are created equal.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 2, 2026
Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey, approximately 38.8 million U.S. residents were either born in Mexico or reported Mexican ancestry or origin.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 30, 2026
One of them is Steffanie Castaneda, a 45-year-old from Jupiter, Fla. She began pursuing Italian citizenship five years ago through her family ancestry.
From Barron's • Jun. 7, 2026
Speaking for the documentary, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was critical of the idea that nationality has to be related to ancestry.
From BBC • Jun. 4, 2026
My parents would never have thought of denying their ancestry.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
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.
