ancestor n : someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent) [syn: ascendant, ascendent, antecedent, root] [ant: descendant]
EtymologyOld English ancestre, auncestre, also ancessour; the first forms from Old French ancestre, French ancêtre, from the Latin nom. antessor one who goes before; the last form from Old French ancessor, from Latin acc. antecessorem, from antecedere to go before; ante before + cedere to go. See Cede, and compare with Antecessor.
PronunciationIPA: WEAE /ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/ or /-toɹ/
- One from whom a person is descended, whether on the father's or mother's side, at any distance of time; a progenitor; a fore father.
- (Biology) An earlier type; a progenitor
- This fossil animal is regarded as the ancestor of the horse.
- (Law) One from whom an estate has descended;—the correlative of heir.
one from whom a person is descended
- Catalan avantpassat
- Czech: předek
- Ewe: tɔgbui
- Finnish: esi-isä
- German: Ahne , Ahnin
- Japanese: 先祖, 祖先
- Korean: 조상 (josang)
- Russian: предок
- Scottish Gaelic: sinnsear
- Serbian: predak , praotac , pretka , predkinja , pramajka , praroditelj
- Slovene: prednik , prednica
- Slovak: predok
- Turkish: ata
an earlier type
An ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, great-great-great-grandparent, great-great-great-great-grandparent, and so forth).
Two individuals have a genetic relationship if one is the ancestor of the other, or if they share a common ancestor. In evolutionary theory, species who share an evolutionary ancestor are said to be of common descent. However, this concept of ancestry does not apply to some bacteria and other organisms capable of horizontal gene transfer.
Assuming that all ancestors are unrelated, an individual has 2n ancestors in the nth generation before him and about 2g+1 total ancestors in the g generations before him. In practise, however, it's clear that the vast majority of ancestors of humans (and indeed any other species) are somehow related. Consider n = 40: the human species is surely more than 40 generations old, yet the number 240 dwarfs the number of humans that have ever lived.
Some cultures place great reverence on ancestors, both living and dead; contrastingly, people in more youth-oriented cultural contexts may display a lesser degree of veneration for elders. In other cultural contexts, some people seek providence from their deceased ancestors; this practice is sometimes known as ancestor worship or, more accurately, ancestor veneration.
As far as contribution to ones autosomal DNA is concerned (this does not include Y-chromosomal DNA or mitochondrial DNA) assuming that none of one's ancestors had children with relatives (even distant relatives), an individual has a total of 2046 ancestors up to the 10th generation, 1024 of which are 10th-generation ancestors. With the same assumption, Any given person has over a million 20th-generation ancestors (generally equivalent to around 500 years) and this theoretical number increases past the total population of the world at around 1400 AD.
ancestor in German: Ahn
ancestor in Spanish: Ancestro
ancestor in Hindi: पूर्वज
ancestor in Dutch: Voorouder
ancestor in Japanese: 先祖
ancestor in Portuguese: Antepassado
ancestor in Simple English: Ancestor
ancestor in Slovenian: Prednik
ancestor in Finnish: Vainaja
ancestor in Swedish: Förfäder
ancestor in Contenese: 祖先
ancestor in Chinese: 祖先
ancestress, announcer, antecedent, ascendant, avant-garde, begetter, bellwether, buccinator, bushwhacker, explorer, forebear, forefather, foregoer, forerunner, front runner, frontiersman, fugleman, grandparent, groundbreaker, guide, harbinger, herald, innovator, lead runner, leader, messenger, parent, pathfinder, pioneer, point, precedent, precursor, predecessor, premise, primogenitor, procreator, progenitor, progenitress, progenitrix, prototype, scout, stormy petrel, trailblazer, trailbreaker, vanguard, vaunt-courier, voortrekker