- 1a person in your family who lived a long time ago synonym forebear His ancestors had come to America from Ireland.
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- 2an animal that lived in the past, that a modern animal has developed from a reptile that was the common ancestor of lizards and turtles
- 3an early form of a machine that later became more developed synonym forerunner The ancestor of the modern bicycle was called a penny-farthing. compare descendant
NAmE//ænˈsɛstrəl//
adjective her ancestral home (= that had belonged to her ancestors)See ancestor in the Oxford Advanced Learner's DictionaryCheck pronunciation: ancestor