ancestor
nounverbattested in dialogue
- United Kingdom//ˈæn.sɛs.tə//
- United States//ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ//
One from whom a person is descended, whether on the father's or mother's side, at any distance of time; a progenitor; a forefather; a forebear.
noun
- 1
One from whom a person is descended, whether on the father's or mother's side, at any distance of time; a progenitor; a forefather; a forebear.
Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.
- 2
An earlier type; a progenitor.
This fossil animal is regarded as the ancestor of the horse.
Some of the descendants of this cyclopean ancestor left their burrows and started to swim.
- 3
One from whom an estate has descended;—the correlative of heir.
- 4
figurativeOne who had the same role or function in former times.
The Magpies are unbeaten and enjoying their best run since 1994, although few would have thought the class of 2011 would come close to emulating their ancestors.
- 5
A word or phrase which serves as the origin of a term in another language.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₂énts Proto-Indo-European *-i Proto-Indo-European *h₂énti Proto-Italic *anti Latin ante Latin ante- Latin cedo Proto-Indo-European *-tōr Proto-Italic *-tōr Latin -tor Latin antecessor Anglo-Norman auncestrebor. Middle English auncestre English ancestor From Middle English ancestre, auncestre, ancessour; the first forms from Old French ancestre (modern French ancêtre), from the Latin nominative antecessor (“one who goes before”); the last form from Old French ancessor, from Latin antecessōrem, accusative of antecessor, from antecēdō (“to go before”) + -tor (“-er”), from ante- (“before”) + cēdō (“to go”). See cede, and compare with antecessor.
verb
- 1
To be an ancestor of.
Her own grandfather had been a Virginian, a descendant of Pocahontas, of course, Pocahontas having been created by Divine Providence for the specific purpose of ancestoring Virginians.
The human population of this earth is descended from a most adaptable population, that which originated living matter and then proceeded through continuous specific change to become the population that ancestored man.
How, that is, could ancestoring Elizabeth become a relational property of James's, when there was, when Elizabeth began to exist, no James to have this property?
Forms
- plural
- ancestors
- past tense
- ancestored
- past participle
- ancestored
- present participle
- ancestoring
- third person singular
- ancestors
ancestor · One from whom a person is descended, whether on the father's or mother's side, at any distance of time; a progenitor; a forefather; a forebear.
ancestral · Of, pertaining to, derived from, or possessed by, an ancestor…anchor · A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river…Anchor · A male given name.