Meaning & use
ancestry
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Meanings
noununcountable
The line of family members from whom a person is descended, or the country or group their family came from.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: her ancestry is Irish; the plural is rare.
Patterns
- trace your ancestry
- of something ancestry
She traced her ancestry back to a village in Poland.
His ancestry includes both Italian and Greek families.
The museum helps visitors research their family ancestry.
noununcountablebiology
The earlier forms or sources from which an animal, plant, idea or object developed.
Grammar: Uncountable; often used for animals and ideas: the ancestry of the domestic dog.
Patterns
- the ancestry of something
Scientists studied the ancestry of modern horses.
The idea has a long ancestry in ancient philosophy.
Common combinations
- trace your ancestry
- Many people use DNA tests to trace their ancestry.
- of mixed ancestry
- The family is of mixed ancestry.
- family ancestry
- Her family ancestry goes back several centuries.
- ancestry research
- Ancestry research often begins with old census records.
- noble ancestry
- He boasted of his noble ancestry.
Synonyms and how they differ
- lineage
- Lineage stresses the direct line of descent through parents and grandparents, often with prestige.
- descent
- Descent can describe origin in one group, as in of Scottish descent, and is a common way to say where your family comes from.
- heritage
- Heritage covers the traditions and culture passed down, not only the biological line.
- pedigree
- Pedigree usually describes the recorded ancestry of an animal or a person with a distinguished background.
Opposites
Word family
- ancestor noun
- a person from whom you are descended
- ancestral adjective
- belonging to or inherited from your ancestors
- ancestress noun
- a female ancestor, now rare
- ancestrally adverb
- in a way related to ancestors
Commonly confused: ancestry or ancestor? ancestry or descendant?
ancestry vs ancestor
An ancestor is one person in your family line, while ancestry is the whole line of descent.
ancestry vs descendant
A descendant comes after you in the line, and an ancestor comes before.
Practice
Using old records, she was able to trace her family's ___ back to the 1700s.
Choose one answer.
After the possessive family's, the noun ancestry names the line of descent. Ancestor would need an article and a single person, and ancestral is an adjective.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ancestry”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.