ancestors
ancestors — noun
1. A family member from the distant past, going back further than your grandparents
A family member from the distant past, going back further than your grandparents.
Yuna traced her ancestors back to a small village in northern Japan.
traced her ancestors back
Diego discovered that his ancestors had sailed from Spain in the 1700s.
Abigail keeps a worn leather book full of stories about her ancestors.
The Watanabe family honour their ancestors every year with a special ceremony.
Many Irish people have ancestors who left the country during the famine.
- forebear
more formal; often used in literary contexts
- forefather
more poetic or old-fashioned; can refer specifically to male ancestors
- predecessor
broader term; does not require a family connection
- descendant
a person in a later generation of the same family line
用法筆記
Almost always used in the plural form 'ancestors'. Refers to relatives from generations further back than grandparents.
常見錯誤
2. A living thing or object from earlier times that today's species or objects deve
A living thing or object from earlier times that today's species or objects developed from.
The fossil suggests that birds had ancestors who lived alongside dinosaurs.
Modern horses are far larger than their ancient ancestors from millions of years ago.
Noah learned that the ancestors of today's whales once walked on land.
The museum displayed clay pots that were the ancestors of modern kitchen bowls.
Chen explained that the wild ancestors of corn looked nothing like the crop we eat.
- precursor
more formal; often used for ideas or objects
- forerunner
suggests leading the way toward what came next
- progenitor
technical term, used mainly in biology
- descendant
a species or form that developed from an earlier one
文法句型
ancestors of + noun
用法筆記
Used for plants, animals, and man-made objects in an evolutionary or developmental sense. Often followed by 'of' to name the descendant.