| 释义 |
ancestral, a.|ænˈsɛstrəl|
Forms: 6 auncetrell, 6–7 -cestrell, 6 -cestrall, 6–9 ancestrel, 8– ancestral.
[a. OFr. ancestrel, ancêtrel, AFr. auncestrel, f. ancestre: see ancestor n. and -al1.]
1. Of, belonging to, or inherited from ancestors.
1579J. Stubbes Gaping Gulf D iv, A faultor prince of Rome..that may be warranted to vs and our heyres for an enemy auncestrell. 1644Howell Lett. iv. xi. (R.) History is the great looking-glass thro' which we may behold with ancestral eyes..actions of ages past. 1797Coleridge Kubla Khan, Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war. 1857H. Reed Lect. Brit. Poets iii. 85 The ancestral position of Chaucer in the annals of our poetry. 1879O'Connor Beaconsfield 235 The extent of their ancestral acres and the splendour of their ancestral halls.
b. esp. in Law. (Often written ancestrel as in OFr.)
1523Fitzherb. Surv. 12 These tenauntes maye holde their landes by dyuers tenures..as by..franke almoyne, homage, auncetrell. c1570Thynne Pride & Lowl. (1841) 16 His cause was good, his title auncestrell. 1768Blackstone Comm. III. 186 Another ancestrel writ..to establish an equal division of the land..on the death of an ancestor. 1809Tomlins Law Dict. 4 L a/1 Homage ancestrel is where a man and his ancestors have time out of mind held their land of the lord by Homage.
2. Biol. Of, pertaining to, or constituting the original type, or any earlier type, whence existing forms are supposed to have been ‘developed.’
1862Darwin Orchids vii. 288 All homologous parts or organs, however much diversified, are modifications of one and the same ancestral organ. 1880Haughton Phys. Geog. vi. 282 Oreodon is the type of a family of ancestral pigs. 1881Flower in Nature No. 619. 438 The generalised or ancestral characters of a race. |