ancestor
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
n.a person in your family who lived a long time ago, such as a great-great-grandparent.
n.a person from whom one is descended, typically more remote than a grandparent.
Simple“She discovered that one of her ancestors was a famous explorer in the 1800s.”
In context“Genetic testing revealed that his ancestors had migrated from Central Asia several centuries before settling in the coastal region.”
SynonymsAntonyms - 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
n.an early type of animal or machine that later versions developed from.
n.an earlier type of a species or a mechanical device that served as a precursor to modern forms.
Simple“The small, three-toed horse is a distant ancestor of the modern horse.”
In context“The massive mainframe computers of the 1960s are the direct ancestors of the sleek laptops we use today.”
SynonymsAntonyms - 03 C1 Advanced
n.a word from an old language that a modern word comes from.
n.a word or phrase in a parent language that serves as the etymological origin for a term in a daughter language.
Simple“The Latin word 'pater' is the ancestor of the English word 'father'.”
In context“Linguists reconstructed the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of several modern European verbs to understand how the grammar evolved over millennia.”
SynonymsetymonrootAntonyms - 04 C2 Proficiency
n.the person who owned a property or land before the current owner inherited it.
n.the person from whom an estate or title has been derived by right of inheritance.
Simple“The family could trace the ownership of the farm back to a single ancestor.”
In context“Under the current statutes, the rights of the heir are strictly tied to the contractual obligations left by the ancestor.”
SynonymsAntonyms - 05 C2 Proficiency
v.to be the person or thing that someone or something else comes from.
v.to function as the progenitor or earlier version of a specific descendant.
Simple“These ancient traditions ancestor many of the customs we still practice today.”
In context“It is theorised that a small population of flightless birds ancestored the diverse species now found across the archipelago.”
UsageThis verb is transitive and requires a direct object.
Usage ancestors of today's
“New research suggests that no matter what we eventually determine the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees to be, we'll learn it was a primate that climbed trees.”
“Finding their earliest ancestors, however, is extremely difficult.”
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.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.