PEDIGREE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does pedigree mean? 

• PEDIGREE (noun)
  The noun PEDIGREE has 3 senses:

1. the descendants of one individual

2. line of descent of a purebred animal

3. ancestry of a purebred animal

  Familiarity information: PEDIGREE used as a noun is uncommon.

• PEDIGREE (adjective)
  The adjective PEDIGREE has 1 sense:

1. having a list of ancestors as proof of being a purebred animal

  Familiarity information: PEDIGREE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PEDIGREE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The descendants of one individual

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

ancestry; blood; blood line; bloodline; descent; line; line of descent; lineage; origin; parentage; pedigree; stemma; stock

Context example:

his entire lineage has been warriors

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

family tree; genealogy (successive generations of kin)

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

family; family line; folk; kinfolk; kinsfolk; phratry; sept (people descended from a common ancestor)

side (a family line of descent)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Line of descent of a purebred animal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

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

breed; stock; strain (a special variety of domesticated animals within a species)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Ancestry of a purebred animal

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

bloodline; pedigree

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

ancestry; derivation; filiation; lineage (inherited properties shared with others of your bloodline)

• PEDIGREE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having a list of ancestors as proof of being a purebred animal

Synonyms:

pedigree; pedigreed; pureblood; pureblooded; thoroughbred

Similar:

purebred (bred for many generations from member of a recognized breed or strain)

 Context examples 

In medicine, a pedigree may also show the pattern of certain genes or diseases within a family.

(Pedigree, NCI Dictionary)

I remember such a one in Picardy, with a name as long as a Gascon's pedigree.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Thus we find such modern creatures as the tapir—an animal with quite a respectable length of pedigree—the great deer, and the ant-eater in the companionship of reptilian forms of jurassic type.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The name for a short-haired cat that does not have a pedigree nor belong to a specific cat breed.

(Domestic Short Hair Cat, NCI Thesaurus)

Individuals in a pedigree who exhibit the specific phenotype under study.

(Affected, NCI Dictionary)

I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With them also were the pick of the Gascon chivalry—the old Duc d'Armagnac, his nephew Lord d'Albret, brooding and scowling over his wrongs, the giant Oliver de Clisson, the Captal de Buch, pink of knighthood, the sprightly Sir Perducas d'Albret, the red-bearded Lord d'Esparre, and a long train of needy and grasping border nobles, with long pedigrees and short purses, who had come down from their hill-side strongholds, all hungering for the spoils and the ransoms of Spain.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)