n., pl. -tries.

1. Ancestral descent or lineage.
2. Ancestors considered as a group.

[Middle English auncestrie, alteration (influenced by auncestre) of Old French ancesserie, from ancessour, ancestor, from Latin antecessor. See ancestor.]

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noun

One's ancestors or their character or one's ancestral derivation: birth, blood, bloodline, descent, extraction, family, genealogy, line, lineage, origin, parentage, pedigree, seed, stock. See kin, precede/follow.

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: the descendants of one individual
  Synonyms: lineage, line, line of descent, descent, bloodline, blood line, blood, pedigree, origin, parentage, stock

Meaning #2: inherited properties shared with others of your bloodline
  Synonyms: lineage, derivation, filiation

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Quotes:

"Do well and you will have no need for ancestors." - Voltaire

"The kind of ancestors we have had is not as important as the kind of descendants our ancestors have." - Source Unknown

"Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person." - Mark Twain

"In church your grandsire cut his throat; to do the job too long he tarried: he should have had my hearty vote to cut his throat before he married." - Jonathan Swift

"Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"Englishmen hate Liberty and Equality too much to understand them. But every Englishman loves a pedigree." - George Bernard Shaw

See more famous quotes about Ancestry

Dansk (Danish)
n. - slægt, aner

Nederlands (Dutch)
afstamming, afkomst

Français (French)
n. - ascendance, ancêtres, origine, aïeux

Deutsch (German)
n. - Herkunft, Vorfahren

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - γενεαλογία, καταγωγή

Italiano (Italian)
stirpe, antenati, estrazione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - descendência (f), linhagem (f), estirpe (f) nobre, antepassados (m pl)

Русский (Russian)
род, предки

Español (Spanish)
n. - abolengo, alcurnia, linaje, raza, antepasados, origen, descendencia

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - anor, förfäder

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
祖先, 列祖列宗, 名门出身, 血统, 世系

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 祖先, 列祖列宗, 名門出身, 血統, 世系

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 조상, 명문, 족보

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 先祖, 祖先, 家系, 家柄, 名門

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) سلسه النسب, أسلاف‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מוצא, שושלת, ייחוס‬

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