- a person from whom one is descended; forebear; progenitor.
- the actual or hypothetical form or stock from which an organism has developed or descended.
- an object, idea, style, or occurrence serving as a prototype, forerunner, or inspiration to a later one: The balloon is an ancestor of the modern dirigible.
- a person who serves as an influence or model for another; one from whom mental, artistic, spiritual, etc., descent is claimed: a philosophical ancestor.
- a person from whom an heir derives an inheritance.
- a person from whom another is directly descended, esp someone more distant than a grandparent; forefather
- an early type of animal or plant from which a later, usually dissimilar, type has evolved
- a person or thing regarded as a forerunner of a later person or thing
