Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Ancestral descent or lineage.
- noun Ancestors considered as a group.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A series or line of ancestors or progenitors; lineage, or those who compose a preceding line of natural descent.
- noun Hence Descent from a line of honorable ancestors; high birth.
- noun In biology, the series of ancestors or ancestral types through which an organized being may have come to be what it is in the process of evolution.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Condition as to ancestors; ancestral lineage; hence, birth or honorable descent.
- noun A series of ancestors or progenitors; lineage, or those who compose the line of natural descent.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Condition as to ancestors; ancestral
lineage ; hence, birth or honorable descent. - noun A series of ancestors or
progenitors ; lineage, or those who compose the line of natural descent.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun inherited properties shared with others of your bloodline
- noun the descendants of one individual
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word ancestry.
Examples
-
With clades the ancestry is assumed depending on shared characteristic traits.
-
Their common ancestry is both the materials used and the creative impetus that caused them to come into being.
-
That everybody (that looks like of Latin ancestry most likely) is presumed GUILTY, not INNOCENT.
-
You've argued above, following Woese's theory, that at the "Darwinian threshold" molecular homology becomes a reliable indicator of vertical descent (i.e., common ancestry from a discrete cell).
-
Like so many contemporary people Alice's ancestry is mixed: African, Native American, European, and yet it is Africa that seems to have a permanent call to her heart.
Adopting An Orphanage - JOIN ALICE WALKER in Sonoma County on Sunday, October 25! Alice Walker Blog Administrator 2009
-
Your ancestry is from Africa and now you live in America.
Think Progress » Beck: ‘African-American is a bogus, PC, made-up term. I mean, that’s not a race.’ 2010
-
To apologize or compensate people because of their ancestry is ridiculous.
-
It refutes your position that ancestry is not a characteristic.
A New Book 2010
-
Obviously African-American ancestry is different from Irish-American ancestry and we would expect some statistical differences.
The Volokh Conspiracy » But Isn’t It a Bit Hard to Predict With a 7-Year-Old? 2010
-
Like so many contemporary people Alice's ancestry is mixed: African, Native American, European, and yet it is Africa that seems to have a permanent call to her heart.
Archive 2009-10-01 Alice Walker Blog Administrator 2009
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.