ancestor

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A person in your family who lived a long time ago, before your grandparents.

   Her ancestors came to this country over two hundred years ago.

2. 2
   noun

   An earlier form of an animal, machine, or thing from which a later one developed.

   This small fossil animal is regarded as an ancestor of the modern horse.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Ancestor entered English in the Middle English period and ultimately belongs to the Latin cedere family, based on the idea of going. With ante, “before,” it denoted someone who had gone before.

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₂énts Proto-Indo-European *-i Proto-Indo-European *h₂énti Proto-Italic *anti Latin ante Latin ante- Proto-Italic *kezdō Latin cedo Proto-Indo-European *-tōr Proto-Italic *-tōr Latin -tor Latin antecessor Anglo-Norman auncestrebor. Middle English auncestre English ancestor 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 anteces…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary