ANCESTOR

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ancestor mean? 

• ANCESTOR (noun)
  The noun ANCESTOR has 1 sense:

1. someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)

  Familiarity information: ANCESTOR used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ANCESTOR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

ancestor; antecedent; ascendant; ascendent; root

Hypernyms ("ancestor" is a kind of...):

relation; relative (a person related by blood or marriage)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ancestor"):

ancestress (a woman ancestor)

forbear; forebear (a person from whom you are descended)

father; forefather; sire (the founder of a family)

foremother (a woman ancestor)

primogenitor; progenitor (an ancestor in the direct line)

Antonym:

descendant (a person considered as descended from some ancestor)

Derivation:

ancestral (inherited or inheritable by established rules (usually legal rules) of descent)

ancestral (of or belonging to or inherited from an ancestor)

 Context examples 

A male relative who is a sibling of the biological father, and who both share a common ancestor.

(Biological Paternal Uncle, NCI Thesaurus)

Genetic relatedness between individuals who are descendants of at least one common ancestor.

(Biological Relative, NCI Dictionary)

The findings also suggest that social communication cues from faces factored into evolutionary selective pressures that gave rise to trichromatic color vision in our ancestors 23 million years ago.

(Rosy health and sickly green: color associations play robust role in reading faces, National Institutes of Health)

Research conducted in the Himalayan Mountains identify a recently discovered three to five million-year-old Tibetan fox, Vulpes qiuzhudingi, as the likely ancestor of the living arctic fox, Vulpes lagopus.

("Out of Tibet" hypothesis: Cradle of evolution for cold-adapted mammals is in Tibet, NSF)

A relative who is the offspring of a sibling of the biological father and thus sharing a common ancestor.

(Biological Paternal Cousin, NCI Thesaurus)

The researchers theorize that the ancestors of all enterococci lived in the guts of prehistoric aquatic animals, and as their hosts left the sea around 425 million years ago, the bacteria were carried along.

(Enterococci may have evolved antimicrobial resistance millions of years ago, NIH)

During their primordial migration out of Africa, ancestors of present-day humans are thought to have interbred with Neanderthals, whose brain characteristics can be inferred from their fossilized skulls.

(“Residual echo” of ancient humans in scans may hold clues to mental disorders, National Institutes of Health)

All of the modern tumours can be traced back to a common ancestor around 1,900 years ago.

(The curious tale of the cancer ‘parasite’ that sailed the seas, University of Cambridge)

All the eighteen species of finches in the archipelago had a common ancestor, from which they evolved in the course of time due to natural selection.

(Researchers report rapid formation of new bird species in Galápagos islands, Wikinews)

A male relative who is a sibling of either of the biological parents, and who share a common ancestor.

(Biological Uncle, NCI Thesaurus)