ancestor

CEFRB1

/ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
noun
A person from whom a family is descended.
02
noun
Extra detail
An earlier type; a progenitor.

Examples

All living beings would have evolved from a common ancestor.
During O-bon, Japanese people believe they receive a visit from an ancestor.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 5
Parts of speech: 1
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 5

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

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.
One from whom an estate has descended;—the correlative of heir.
A word or phrase which serves as the origin of a term in another language.

More examples

In context

English and German share a common ancestor.
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.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

My great-grandfather was an immigrant and a direct blank of our family line.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

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Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

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.
2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2023
Some of the descendants of this cyclopean ancestor left their burrows and started to swim.
2026 February 23, Carl Zimmer, “The Rise of Eyes Began With Just One. Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by the evolution of the vertebrate eye. New research suggests that it traces...
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.
2011 October 1, Saj Chowdhury, “Wolverhampton 1-2 Newcastle”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2024
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.
1920, Marie Conway Oemler, The Purple Heights, page 9
But he could have completed it: Lucas Quintus Carothers McCaslin Beauchamp. Last surviving sone and child of Tomey's Terrel and Tennie Beauchamp. March 17, 1874 except that there was no need: not Lucius Quintus &c &c &c, but Lucas Quintus, not refusing to be called Lucius, because he simply eliminated that word from the name; not denying, declining the name itself, because he used three quarters of it; but simply taking the name and changing, altering it, making it no longer the white man's but his own , by himself composed, himself selfprogenitive and nominate, by himself ancestored, as, for all the old ledgers recorded to the contrary, old Carothers himself was
1942, William Faulkner, “The Bear”, in Go down, Moses: and other stories, page 281

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Origin

noun

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.

Deep Dive

noun

More examples

Related

Quick test

My great-grandfather was an immigrant and a direct blank— of our family line.

Nearby

Origin

noun

My great-grandfather was an immigrant and a direct blank of our family line.