ancestral
/ænˈsɛs.təɹ.əl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.43 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of, pertaining to, derived from, or possessed by, an ancestor or ancestors.
noun
A forerunner; One who was involved in an earlier version of something.
Example Sentences
- "an ancestral estate"
- "one’s ancestral home"
- "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."
- "Some big cheese bein' grought back to his native island to get planted with his ancestrals."
- "I thought of the strange two-dimensional world these forebearing ancestrals had to live in."
- "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."
Etymology
Word Breakdown
- Root: ancestrel
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ænˈsɛs.təɹ.əl/