ancestor
Use Ancestor in a sentence
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sɛs noun
1.
a person from whom one is descended; forebear; progenitor.
2.
Biology. the actual or hypothetical form or stock from which an organism has developed or descended.
3.
an object, idea, style, or occurrence serving as a prototype, forerunner, or inspiration to a later one: The balloon is an ancestor of the modern dirigible.
4.
5.
Law. a person from whom an heir derives an inheritance.
Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English ancestre < Old French (with t developed between s and r) < Latin antecessor antecessor
1250–1300; Middle English ancestre < Old French (with t developed between s and r) < Latin antecessor antecessor
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To ancestor
00:10
Ancestor
is always a great word to know.
So is unfit. Does it mean:
| an organism that is not adapted to prevailing conditions or producing offspring that maintain its contribution of genes to the next generation |
| one complete life cycle; one of the alternate phases that complete a life cycle having more than one phase |
Collins
World English Dictionary
ancestor (ˈænsɛstə) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | (often plural) a person from whom another is directly descended, esp someone more distant than a grandparent; forefather |
| 2. | an early type of animal or plant from which a later, usually dissimilar, type has evolved |
| 3. | a person or thing regarded as a forerunner of a later person or thing: the ancestor of the modern camera |
| [C13: from Old French ancestre, from Late Latin antecēssor one who goes before, from Latin antecēdere; see | |
| 'ancestress | |
| —fem n | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History
ancestor
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Example sentences
They then extrapolated back along the bat family tree to calculate how big the brain of the common ancestor of living bats was.
Yet they still used many of the same genes their ancestor did long ago.
The long-gone ancestor is known as the founder of this population, and his or her genetic legacy is called a founder mutation.
He argued that both birds and dinosaurs had evolved from a common ancestor.
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