Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1300-1400
Language: Old French
Origin: ancestre, from Latin antecessor 'one who goes before', from antecedere; ANTECEDENT

ancestor

 noun
     
an‧ces‧tor [countable]
1 a member of your family who lived a long time ago [↪ descendant]:
My ancestors were French.
2 an animal that lived in the past, that modern animals have developed from:
Lions and house cats evolved from a common ancestor (=the same ancestor).
3 the form in which a modern machine, vehicle etc first existed
ancestor of
Babbage's invention was the ancestor of the modern computer.
—ancestral adjective:
the family's ancestral home
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
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