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.
• 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
• The impulse to hold on to a memory is almost primal—think of ancestors drawing on cave walls or telling stories around a fire.
  — Erin Sagen, The Atlantic, 2 Dec. 2024
• Pterosaurs, dinosaurs and birds all belong to the group Avemetatarsalia and share a common evolutionary ancestor.
  — NBC News, 20 Apr. 2022
• To put that in perspective, humans and chimps, their last common ancestor was 13 to 16 million years ago.
  — Bill Kearney, Sun Sentinel, 30 Nov. 2024
• Chickens may be the most populous bird on the planet while their ancestor, the red jungle fowl, persists only in a few limited habitats.
  — Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 May 2022
• The term hominin refers to all species in the human family tree that emerged after the split from the ancestors of the great apes 6 million to 7 million years ago.
  — Katie Hunt, CNN, 28 Nov. 2024
• Further analysis of the fossil found that the feathers on the pterosaur may have been inherited from an ancestor common to both dinosaurs and pterosaurs.
  — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Apr. 2022
• Likewise, as a species, the octopus is a strange peer, given that our most recent mutual ancestor lived about 600 million years ago.
  — Nicole Acheampong, The Atlantic, 22 Apr. 2022
• The ancestors of early dinosaurs were small and omnivorous, and were far outnumbered by other vertebrates.
  — Michael Irving, New Atlas, 29 Nov. 2024
• Eisenberg wanted to convey the irony of yearning to connect with your ancestors’ pain while being unwilling to experience — or even confront — any discomfort while doing so.
  — Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 3 Dec. 2024
• Even with all these halvings, very distant relatives out to fifth cousins share so much identical DNA that a common ancestor is the only possible source.
  — Josh Zumbrun, WSJ, 20 May 2022
• 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 | [e-mail], al, 9 July 2023
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• When and where did our ancestors first fashion footwear?
  — Charles Helm, Discover Magazine, 13 Sep. 2023
• This suggests the ancestors of apes and humans were feasting on soft, sweet fruits, rather than on hard nuts and seeds.
  — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Jan. 2024
• And that’s where Martin Scorcese’s ancestors came from.
  — As Told To Vogue, Vogue, 5 Apr. 2024
• They are known for some distinct sets of chompers and are not a far cry from their living ancestors.
  — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 24 July 2024

Last Updated: 22 Dec 2024