Meaning & use
common ancestor
An organism or lineage from which two or more different species or groups have both descended.
See it in a sentence
Humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor that lived millions of years ago.
Genealogists traced the two families back to a common ancestor from the 1700s.
A note on using this word
Central to evolutionary biology and genealogy; sharing a common ancestor does not mean one group descended from the other, only that both share earlier origins.
Words with a similar meaning
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