Ancestral
[æn'sestr(ə)l] or [æn'sɛstrəl]
Definition
(adj.) inherited or inheritable by established rules (usually legal rules) of descent; 'ancestral home'; 'ancestral lore'; 'hereditary monarchy'; 'patrimonial estate'; 'transmissible tradition' .
(adj.) of or belonging to or inherited from an ancestor .
Edited by Adela--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) Of, pertaining to, derived from, or possessed by, an ancestor or ancestors; as, an ancestral estate.
Edited by Aaron
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Hereditary, patrimonial.
Typed by Duane
Examples
- The Neolithic men of Europe were white men ancestral to the modern Europeans. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- In the ancestral lands of the south-east men had already been sowing wheat perhaps for thousands of years. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Now, all these were more or less ancestral to living forms, and all have brains relatively much smaller than their living representatives. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- The red eyes of the ancestral ape had come back into the world. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- It looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraits with bars and patches of brightness never contemplated by the painters. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- Long before men were men, the ancestral ape was a proprietor. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Mrs. Archer ignored the allusion to the ancestral cuisine and Mr. Jackson continued with deliberation: No, she was NOT at the ball. Edith Wharton. The Age of Innocence.
- He gratified the conservative instincts of the priests by packing off the local gods back to their ancestral temples. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Only our ancestral deity sitting upon the centre and navel of the earth will be trusted by us if we have any sense, in an affair of such magnitude. Plato. The Republic.
Typed by Duane