pedigree

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The history or provenance of an idea, custom etc.

   This connection between sexual and spiritual impurity had an immense pedigree.

2. 2
   adj

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

3. 3
   noun

   ancestry of a purebred animal

4. 4
   noun

   line of descent of a purebred animal

Simplified etymology

In medieval manuscripts, a mark of three curved lines indicated a person’s family descent or succession. Because it resembled a crane’s claw or track, it was called pé de grue, “crane’s foot,” in the French spoken by descendants of Norman settlers in England. The resulting word pedigree came to mean a family tree and then a person’s lineage or, from the early 17th century, an animal’s lineage.

From Anglo-Norman pé de grue, a variant of Old French pié de gru (“foot of a crane”), from Latin pes (“foot”) + grus (“crane”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary