How to Use ancestor in a Sentence

ancestor

noun
  • Her ancestors were great sea captains.
  • Latin is the ancestor of Italian and French.
  • The museum included an exhibit showing ancestors of the modern computer.
  • My ancestors came to America during the 1800s.
  • Not like our ancestors who died of scurvy at the age of 30.
    — Ali Wentworth, Glamour, 9 Aug. 2023
  • The spirit of the ancestors has to make a statement in our lives.
    — Lawrence Specker | [email protected], al, 9 July 2023
  • These 400-pounders serve as the farm’s broodstock, or the ancestors of all the other fish on the farm.
    — Kylie Williams, Miami Herald, 29 June 2025
  • My ancestors have all died and the baton is in my hand.
    — Kyle Eustice, SPIN, 24 Jan. 2025
  • One of the bears was the ancestor of the American black bear that is still around today.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Apr. 2021
  • For Reti, value is in the spot in the river where his ancestors gave birth and the sacred ground where they’re buried.
    — Rachel Pannett, Washington Post, 27 Oct. 2023
  • Jake is a descendent of William Clark and has come to see the city for which his ancestor is named.
    — Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Nov. 2020
  • The heroine feels a sense of belonging; she is told that this is the home of her ancestors.
    — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 6 Jan. 2025
  • Epochs have passed since our last common ancestor roamed the Earth.
    — Ross Andersen, The Atlantic, 24 Feb. 2024
  • His ancestors, Catherine and William Brighton, arrived in Utah back in the 1850s.
    — Michal Lev-Ram, Fortune, 22 Aug. 2023
  • Some of her ancestors also came from Cyprus in the Mediterranean.
    — Daniel Gonzalez, The Arizona Republic, 26 Feb. 2024
  • With the guidance of Mr. Craig and a Tongva poet, the children meet an ancestor, in the form of a crow, who sings to them through the wind.
    — Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 29 Mar. 2021
  • Their ancestor, Charles I, was the first to open the royal postal service to public use in 1635 to raise funds.
    — Adela Suliman, Washington Post, 27 Sep. 2022
  • Chappelle jokes that his show was bought and sold as much as his ancestor was.
    — Andy Hoglund, EW.com, 8 Nov. 2020
  • Take the king crab’s ancestor, for instance—the hermit crab.
    — Sara Kiley Watson, Popular Science, 14 Dec. 2020
  • Indeed, the shades of someone’s ancestor could be just a click away.
    — Samantha Baskind, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Apr. 2023
  • Our early ancestors must have craned their necks in awe when a lightning bolt lit up the night sky.
    — Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 20 Dec. 2023
  • The last common ancestor of cats and dogs lived around 45 million years ago.
    — Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 18 Feb. 2024
  • Her ancestors had come to this big-sky state in a covered wagon.
    — Stephanie Hanes, The Christian Science Monitor, 20 Nov. 2023
  • For this one to be about, for her to be charged, even by her ancestors, with the future of her people on her shoulders.
    — Dessi Gomez, Deadline, 2 Dec. 2024
  • Hobbits will not appear in the show, but their ancestor species called the harfoots will.
    — Zack Sharf, Variety, 10 Feb. 2022
  • The two variants arose around the same time and come from the same immediate ancestor strain.
    — Denise Roland, WSJ, 27 Jan. 2022
  • When and where did our ancestors first fashion footwear?
    — Charles Helm, Discover Magazine, 13 Sep. 2023
  • The last common ancestor of birds and mammals was a reptile that roamed the earth around 320 million years ago.
    — Bret Stetka, Scientific American, 24 Sep. 2020
  • Native American tribes performed rain dances to summon their spirits and ancestors to bring rain.
    — Kian Bakhtiari, Forbes.com, 30 June 2025
  • Their analyses suggest the most recent common ancestor of living night lizards arose more than 92 million years ago, long before the Chicxulub asteroid crashed down.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 June 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ancestor.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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