Ancestor
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 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 someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent) wordnet
- 3 An earlier type; a progenitor
"This fossil animal is regarded as the ancestor of the horse."
- 4 One from whom an estate has descended;—the correlative of heir.
- 5 One who had the same role or function in former times. figuratively
"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."
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- 6 A word or phrase which serves as the origin of a term in another language.
- 1 To be an ancestor of. transitive
"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."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"During O-bon, Japanese people believe they receive a visit from an ancestor."
Etymology
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.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.