ancestral

English

Alternative forms

• ancestrall (obsolete)
• auncestral (obsolete)

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman ancestrel, from ancestre (“ancestor”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ænˈsɛs.təɹ.əl/, /ænˈsɛs.tɹəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

ancestral (not comparable)

1. Of, pertaining to, derived from, or possessed by, an ancestor or ancestors

   an ancestral estate

   one’s ancestral home

Derived terms

• ancestral chart
• ancestral hall
• ancestralism
• ancestrality
• ancestrally
• ancestral name
• Ancestral Puebloan
• ancestral shrine
• ancestral temple
• nonancestral
• pseudoancestral
• transancestral

 

Translations

pertaining to ancestors

Catalan: ancestral (ca), avial (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 祖先的 (zh) (zǔxiān de), 祖傳的 / 祖传的 (zh) (zǔchuán de) Finnish: perintö-, esi-isiltä peritty French: ancestral (fr) Friulian: ancestrâl Galician: ancestral German: Ahnen- (de), Vorfahren-, der Vorfahren (postpositioned), angestammt (de), altüberliefert Ido: ancestrala (io) Italian: ancestrale (it), atavico (it), primordiale (it), avito (it) Japanese: 先祖の (ja) (そせんの, sosen no) Latin: paternus, maternus Manx: dooghyssagh Polish: ancestralny (pl), antenacki (rare, literary) Portuguese: ancestral (pt), antepassado (pt) m Romanian: ancestral (ro) Russian: пото́мственный (ru) (potómstvennyj) Spanish: ancestral (es) Telugu: పిత్రార్జితము (te) (pitrārjitamu) Venetan: ancestrałe, atàvego, primordiałe

Noun

ancestral (plural ancestrals)

1. An ancestor or forbear.
   • 1955, Harry Chandler Elliott, Reprieve from Paradise, page 147:

     Some big cheese bein' grought back to his native island to get planted with his ancestrals.

   • 2006, Scott Dikkers, Peter Hilleren, Destined for Destiny, page 23:

     I thought of the strange two-dimensional world these forebearing ancestrals had to live in.

   • 2007, Michael R. Ott, The Future of Religion: Toward a Reconciled Society, page 145:

     Moreover, the superior ancestrals associated with Plymouth Rock (the Pilgrim Fathers) and Mt. Rushmore (four U.S. presidents) function in the same way as premodern superior ancestrals the world over: as superhuman beings, they preserve and maintain the nation. However, unlike superior ancestrals in pre-modern societies, these ancestors do not evolve out of an actual kin group, and therefore one does not have to be a lineal descendant to approach them.

2. (India, law) A descendant of one's ancestors.
   • 1868, The Punjab Record - Volume 3, page 58:

     He considered that the local custom permitted a sister's son to inherit in default of near male ancestrals.

   • 1921, Jagannath Raghunath Gharpure, Principles of Hindu Law, page 390:

     But ancestrals cannot be willed away .

   • 1946, Sino-Indian Studies - Volume 2, Part 1, page 19:

     Having no regards for their ancestrals and parents.

3. An elderly relative.
   • 2018, R. C. Jette, The Elfdins and the Gold Temple: An Oralee Chronicle:

     Cadwy and some of the ancestrals carried Gilbert back to the platform to have his wounds healed by Guinevere.

4. (biology) A genetic precursor.
   • 1987, Human Biology - Volume 59, Issues 1-3 - 4, page 44:

     The intermediate nature of the gene frequencies of the populations in the two groupings to those of the putative ancestrals, Table 4, indicates the Mestizo gentic constitution of the MMA populations and supports previous information for this area (Garza-Chapa 1983b)

   • 1993, Jorge Enrique Autrique, Molecular Markers Applied to Wheat Improvement, page 33:

     All the ancestrals with unknown origin or pedigree were included within this group.

   • 2023, Gary Paul Nabhan, David Suro Piñera, Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals:

     Some of the tequila ancestrals and añejos have a subdominant odor to them — the smoky, vanilla-like syringaldehyde that is also in coastal raicillas and bacanoras .

5. A forerunner; One who was involved in an earlier version of something.
   • 1996, Victor Davis Hanson, Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea, page 25:

     It is hard, remember, to match the craft and proficiency of the ancestrals' bare-bones protocols of turning grapes into raisins, of mastering heat, dirt, and moisture to produce a natural and inexpensive candy.

   • 2015, Allan Hayes, John Blom, Carol Hayes, Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni:

     Ancestrals were planters and irrigators, but more cosmopolitan.

   • 2017, Jerry Thompson, Eddie Muller, Oakland Noir:

     I did what any eighties East Coast nerdy writer would do: I called on the ancestrals and they guided me. I asked Dorothy Lazard, Judy Juanita, and Keenan Norris for stories, and they asnwered that call without hesitation, as did new writers like Mahmud Rahman and Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder.

6. An earlier version of something.
   • 1978, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria - Volume 90, page 75:

     The old ancestrals of the Murray were disrupted and caused to flow along the Gulpa Creek at the toe of the fault escarpment to Deniliquin (Pels 1966). Later the younger ancestrals followed the old for a short distance beyond Tocumwal, left them and formed the Bullatale Creek flood plain.

   • 2013, Suzanne Bakker, Health Information Management: What Strategies?:

     The Internet was and is, an invention of academics, researchers, including the ones of the military phase. It is still the first anarchy in power (a limited but not negligible disuised power) with well known ancestrals in other fields and ideologies, like the Commune or, less in the anarchic field and more in the one of the economic cooperation in network, the Hanseatic League.

7. The spirit of one's ancestor.
   • 1872, USA House of Representatives, House Documents - Volume 18; Volume 267, page 165:

     Is not that article of the treaty relating to Christianity which, in condemning the worship of ancestrals, places itself in direct opposition to the fundamental law of the empire, a most flagrant interference in the affairs of the Chinese?

   • 1960, Guy E. Swanson, The Birth of the Gods: The Origin of Primitive Beliefs, page 103:

     Only three of the 23 societies with such kinship groups lack active ancestrals. Half of the 24 societies without such kinship gropus posses active ancestral spirits.

   • 1999, Surinder Jit Singh Pall, The Masters & the Word Divine: Questions-answers, page 32:

     The Guru then asked them that if their water could reach the sun or their ancestrals as they used to believe, why could his water not reach Kartarpur, which was far nearer than the sun.

8. One who follows, honors, or is attracted to an ancestral tradition.
   • 1928, Antiques: A Magazine for Collectors - Volumes 13-14, page 530:

     To future ancestrals living in old homesteads or in copies of them, Figures 2 and 3 indicate what and how to show.

   • 2011, Emily Boyd, Carl Folke, Adapting Institutions, page 62:

     The DC [District Commissioner] reasoned that since it was only the ancestrals who had a problem with the incident, they should supply the bulls necessary to purify the forest. The ancestrals refused, since they did not want to pay for an offence of the Christian group.

9. (logic) A relationship in which something is a precursor.
   • 1992, Diane Brentari, Gary N. Larson, Lynn A. MacLeod, The Joy of Grammar: A festschrift in honor of James D. McCawley, page 309:

     Like all ordinary ancestrals, remote successor is logically reflexive.

   • 2004, Paul Martin Postal, Skeptical Linguistic Essays, page 61:

     One can take advantage of the ancestrals of basic relations such as RemoteSuccessor, to define Quace structure as follows internal to Proposal A:

   • 2010, Paul Martin Postal, Edge-based Clausal Syntax, page 32:

     I thus naturally extend the notation introduced for the ancestrals of structural relations between arcs to the nonstructural relations Sponsor and Erase, and to relations defined in terms of them like Successor.

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “ancestral”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams

• Lancaster, renal cast

Catalan

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ən.səsˈtɾal]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [an.sesˈtɾal]

Adjective

ancestral m or f (masculine and feminine plural ancestrals)

1. ancestral

   Synonym: avial

Related terms

• ancestre

Further reading

• “ancestral” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “ancestral”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “ancestral” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “ancestral” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French ancestrel, from ancestre (“ancestor”), from Late Latin antecessor, an agent noun from the past participle stem of Latin antecedere (“to proceed”), from the prefix ante- with the infinitive cedere (“to go”), the latter from Proto-Italic *kezdō (“to avoid or to go away”), from Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to yield or to go”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.sɛs.tʁal/

• Audio:

  (file)

Adjective

ancestral (feminine ancestrale, masculine plural ancestraux, feminine plural ancestrales)

1. ancestral
   • 1983, Les Maîtres de l'Univers:

     Par le pouvoir du crâne ancestral ! Je détiens la force toute-puissante !

     By the power of Grayskull! I have the power!

   • 1985, She-Ra, la princesse du pouvoir:

     Pour l’honneur du crâne ancestral ! Je suis She-Ra !

     For the honor of Grayskull! I am She-Ra!

Further reading

• “ancestral”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Portuguese

Etymology

From the Old French adjective ancestrel, from the noun ancestre (“ancestor”), from Late Latin antecessor (“predecessor”), an agent noun from the past participle stem of Latin antecedere (“to proceed”), from the prefix ante- with the infinitive cedere (“to go”), the former from Proto-Italic *kezdō (“to avoid or to go away”), from the Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to yield or to go”).

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ɐ̃.sesˈtɾaw/ [ɐ̃.sesˈtɾaʊ̯]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ɐ̃.sesˈtɾaw/ [ɐ̃.sesˈtɾaʊ̯]
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ɐ̃.seʃˈtɾaw/ [ɐ̃.seʃˈtɾaʊ̯]

 

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ɐ̃.sɨʃˈtɾal/ [ɐ̃.sɨʃˈtɾaɫ]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ɐ̃.sɨʃˈtɾal/ [ɐ̃.sɨʃˈtɾaɫ]
  • (Southern Portugal) IPA^(key): /ɐ̃.sɨʃˈtɾa.li/

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -al, (Brazil) -aw
• Hyphenation: an‧ces‧tral

Adjective

ancestral m or f (plural ancestrais)

1. ancestral (relating to ancestors)
2. archaic (extremely old)

   Synonyms: arcaico, antigo

Derived terms

• ancestralmente

Noun

ancestral m or f by sense (plural ancestrais)

1. ancestor; forefather (someone from whom a person is descended)

   Synonyms: progenitor, antepassado, ascendente, avoengo

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from French ancestral.

Adjective

ancestral m or n (feminine singular ancestrală, masculine plural ancestrali, feminine and neuter plural ancestrale)

1. ancestral

Declension

		singular				plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine		masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative- accusative	indefinite	ancestral		ancestrală		ancestrali	ancestrale
	definite	ancestralul		ancestrala		ancestralii	ancestralele
genitive- dative	indefinite	ancestral		ancestrale		ancestrali	ancestrale
	definite	ancestralului		ancestralei		ancestralilor	ancestralelor

Spanish

Etymology

From the Old French ancestrel, from the noun ancestre (“ancestor”), from Late Latin antecessor (“predecessor”), an agent noun from the past participle stem of Latin antecedere (“to proceed”), from the prefix ante- with the infinitive cedere (“to go”), the latter from Proto-Italic *kezdō (“to avoid or to go away”), from the Proto-Indo-European *ked- (“to yield or to go”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /anθesˈtɾal/ [ãn̟.θesˈt̪ɾal]
• IPA^(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /ansesˈtɾal/ [ãn.sesˈt̪ɾal]

• Audio (Venezuela):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: an‧ces‧tral

Adjective

ancestral m or f (masculine and feminine plural ancestrales)

1. ancestral

Derived terms

• ancestralidad
• ancestralmente

 

Related terms

• ancestro

 

Further reading

• “ancestral”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10