ancestor

plural ancestors · alternative obsolete ancestour · alternative obsolete auncestor · alternative obsolete auncestour

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.

   2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2023

   Synonyms: forebear, fore-elder, forefather

2. An earlier type; a progenitor.

   This fossil animal is regarded as the ancestor of the horse.

   1 more example

   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 back to a cyclopean invertebrate with a single eye atop the head”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 24 Feb 2026

3. lawOne from whom an estate has descended;—the correlative of heir.
4. figurativelyOne 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.

   2011 October 1, Saj Chowdhury, “Wolverhampton 1-2 Newcastle”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2024

   Synonyms: predecessor

5. human sciencesA word or phrase which serves as the origin of a term in another language.

   Synonyms: reflex, source, origin

present singular third person ancestors · participle present ancestoring · participle past ancestored · past ancestored · alternative obsolete ancestour · alternative obsolete auncestor · alternative obsolete auncestour

1. transitiveTo be an ancestor of.

   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?

   2010, Peter Loptson, Reality: Fundamental Topics in Metaphysics, →ISBN, page 171

   3 more examples

   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

   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.

   2006, Richard T. Hull, Presidential Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 1951-1960