Synonyms for ancestor
ˈæn sɛs tər; esp. Brit. -sə stəran·ces·tor

Princeton's WordNetRate these synonyms:2.8 / 6 votes

1. ancestor, ascendant, ascendent, antecedent, rootnoun

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

   Synonyms:
   theme, rootage, radical, ascendant, antecedent, etymon, base, beginning, solution, origin, stem, root, source, tooth root, ascendent, forerunner, root word

   Antonyms:
   descendent, descendant

Dictionary of English SynonymesRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. ancestornoun

   Synonyms:
   forefather, progenitor, father

Synonyms, Antonyms & Associated WordsRate these synonyms:2.4 / 9 votes

1. ancestornoun

   Synonyms:
   forefather, progenitor, primogenitor, forbear

   Associated words:
   atavic, atavism, lineal, collateral, hereditary, heredity, genealogy, genealogist

PPDB, the paraphrase databaseRate these paraphrases:0.0 / 0 votes

1. List of paraphrases for "ancestor":

   progenitor, ascendant, forerunner, predecessor, ancestral, old-timer, ascendancy, ancestry

How to pronounce ancestor?

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How to use ancestor in a sentence?

1. Laurence J. Peter:

   Every man serves a useful purpose A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.

2. Darryl Granger:

   What our age shows is that this can not be true, because they are virtually the same age, there must be an older common ancestor. It also gives much more time for the South African species to evolve, and reopens discussion about the role of the South African species into later hominins such as Paranthropus.

3. Conrad Labandeira:

   That, in turn, suggests that the two groups of insects share a genetic program for eyespot production, the last common ancestor of these insects lived about 320 million years ago, deep in the Paleozoic. So we think this must be a developmental mechanism that goes all the way back to the origins of winged insects.

4. Eugenia Gold:

   But nothing shows us what pterosaurs looked like before they adapted to fly, all the evidence shows us the pterosaurs are cousins of dinosaurs and that both share a common ancestor.

5. Milan Kundera:

   We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.