Dictionary

ancestral en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ænˈsɛs.tɹəl/ (US)
• /ænˈsɛs.təɹ.əl/ (US)

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman ancestrel, from ancestre (“ancestor”), equivalent to ancestor + -al.

Meanings

1. (not-comparable) Of, pertaining to, derived from, or possessed by, an ancestor or ancestors.
   • one’s ancestral home
   • an ancestral estate
   • It seems that people with an ancestral history of enduring famines develop a tendency to store more body fat, becoming overfat even when they aren’t overweight. 2025 June 17, Shane Duquette, Marco Walker-Ng, “What is Skinny Fat? And How to Know If You Are”, in Bony to Beastly, archived from the original on 15 Aug 2025:

Forms

Deriveds

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

Translations (36)

it primordiale (pertaining to ancestors) · ru пото́мственный (pertaining to ancestors) · te పిత్రార్జితము (pertaining to ancestors) · cmn 祖先的 (pertaining to ancestors) · gv dooghyssagh (pertaining to ancestors) · vec ancestrałe (pertaining to ancestors) · ca ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) · fr ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) · pl antenacki (pertaining to ancestors) · pt ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) · cmn 祖傳的 /祖传的 (pertaining to ancestors) · fi esi-isiltä peritty (pertaining to ancestors) · it atavico (pertaining to ancestors) · vec primordiałe (pertaining to ancestors) · la paternus (pertaining to ancestors) · vec atàvego (pertaining to ancestors) · hi पैतृक (pertaining to ancestors) · de angestammt (pertaining to ancestors) · gl ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) · es ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) · la maternus (pertaining to ancestors) · it ancestrale (pertaining to ancestors) · pl ancestralny (pertaining to ancestors) · ca avial (pertaining to ancestors) · io ancestrala (pertaining to ancestors) · de Ahnen- (pertaining to ancestors) · de Vorfahren- (pertaining to ancestors) · pt antepassado (pertaining to ancestors) · ro ancestral (pertaining to ancestors) · de altüberliefert (pertaining to ancestors) · it avito (pertaining to ancestors) · fi perintö- (pertaining to ancestors) · fur ancestrâl (pertaining to ancestors) · ga sinseartha (pertaining to ancestors) · ga sinsearach (pertaining to ancestors) · ja 先祖の (pertaining to ancestors)

ancestral en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ænˈsɛs.tɹəl/ (US)
• /ænˈsɛs.təɹ.əl/ (US)

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman ancestrel, from ancestre (“ancestor”), equivalent to ancestor + -al.

Meanings

1. An ancestor or forbear.
   • 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. 2007, Michael R. Ott, The Future of Religion: Toward a Reconciled Society, page 145:
   • I thought of the strange two-dimensional world these forebearing ancestrals had to live in. 2006, Scott Dikkers, Peter Hilleren, Destined for Destiny, page 23:
   • Some big cheese bein' grought back to his native island to get planted with his ancestrals. 1955, Harry Chandler Elliott, Reprieve from Paradise, page 147:
2. (India) A descendant of one's ancestors.
   • He considered that the local custom permitted a sister's son to inherit in default of near male ancestrals. 1868, The Punjab Record - Volume 3, page 58:
   • Having no regards for their ancestrals and parents. 1946, Sino-Indian Studies - Volume 2, Part 1, page 19:
   • But ancestrals cannot be willed away . 1921, Jagannath Raghunath Gharpure, Principles of Hindu Law, page 390:
3. An elderly relative.
   • Cadwy and some of the ancestrals carried Gilbert back to the platform to have his wounds healed by Guinevere. 2018, R. C. Jette, The Elfdins and the Gold Temple: An Oralee Chronicle:
4. A genetic precursor.
   • 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) 1987, Human Biology - Volume 59, Issues 1-3 - 4, page 44:
   • All the ancestrals with unknown origin or pedigree were included within this group. 1993, Jorge Enrique Autrique, Molecular Markers Applied to Wheat Improvement, page 33:
   • 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 . 2023, Gary Paul Nabhan, David Suro Piñera, Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals:
5. A forerunner; One who was involved in an earlier version of something.
   • 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. 2017, Jerry Thompson, Eddie Muller, Oakland Noir:
   • 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. 1996, Victor Davis Hanson, Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea, page 25:
   • Ancestrals were planters and irrigators, but more cosmopolitan. 2015, Allan Hayes, John Blom, Carol Hayes, Southwestern Pottery: Anasazi to Zuni:
6. An earlier version of something.
   • 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. 2013, Suzanne Bakker, Health Information Management: What Strategies?:
   • 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. 1978, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria - Volume 90, page 75:
7. The spirit of one's ancestor.
   • 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. 1999, Surinder Jit Singh Pall, The Masters & the Word Divine: Questions-answers, page 32:
   • 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? 1872, USA House of Representatives, House Documents - Volume 18; Volume 267, page 165:
   • 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. 1960, Guy E. Swanson, The Birth of the Gods: The Origin of Primitive Beliefs, page 103:
8. One who follows, honors, or is attracted to an ancestral tradition.
   • To future ancestrals living in old homesteads or in copies of them, Figures 2 and 3 indicate what and how to show. 1928, Antiques: A Magazine for Collectors - Volumes 13-14, page 530:
   • 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. 2011, Emily Boyd, Carl Folke, Adapting Institutions, page 62:
9. A relationship in which something is a precursor.
   • 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. 2010, Paul Martin Postal, Edge-based Clausal Syntax, page 32:
   • One can take advantage of the ancestrals of basic relations such as RemoteSuccessor, to define Quace structure as follows internal to Proposal A: 2004, Paul Martin Postal, Skeptical Linguistic Essays, page 61:
   • Like all ordinary ancestrals, remote successor is logically reflexive. 1992, Diane Brentari, Gary N. Larson, Lynn A. MacLeod, The Joy of Grammar: A festschrift in honor of James D. McCawley, page 309:

Forms