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 | [e-mail], al, 9 July 2023
• My ancestors have all died and the baton is in my hand.
  — Kyle Eustice, SPIN, 24 Jan. 2025
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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
• Our ancestors once lit large pyres and worshipped fire gods.
  — Daniel Immerwahr, The New Yorker, 14 Jan. 2025
• White South African farmers are living off of fenced land and goods from their racist ancestors.
  — Baltimore Sun Editorial Board, Baltimore Sun, 6 Feb. 2025
• This makes the small allele the ancestral allele — a trait that stems from the common ancestor of canids.
  — NBC News, 27 Jan. 2022
• 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
• So tender, the act of attempting to record and make sense of an ancestor’s stories.
  — Los Angeles Times, 10 Sep. 2021
• Jackson was captivated by the use of water as a symbol of freedom and hope for her ancestors in the lyrics of the spirituals.
  — Brittney Melton, NPR, 26 Mar. 2025
• The types of joints we (and most vertebrates) share most likely originated from the same common ancestor.
  — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 21 Mar. 2025