α. late Middle English auncetrel, late Middle English–1600s auncestrell, 1500s ancestrall, 1500s auncestrall, 1500s auncetrell, 1500s– ancestrel (now only in sense 1a), 1600s auncestrel, 1600s– ancestral.
β. 1600s ancestoral.
ancestraladj.
/anˈsɛstr(ə)l/, U.S. /ænˈsɛstrəl/ 1. Of, relating to, or inherited from an ancestor or ancestors.
a. Law. In early use chiefly in form ancestrel and frequently as a postmodifier. Esp. used with reference to actions, claims, writs, etc., having grounds in a right derived by inheritance. Cf. ancestor n. 1b.homage ancestral: see homage n. 1c.
ΘΚΠ
society > law > legal right > right of possession or ownership > right to succeed to title, position, or estate > succession > [adjective] > relating to inheritance
ancestral1463
patrimonial1530
1463–5 Rolls of Parl.: Edward IV (Electronic ed.) Parl. Apr. 1463 §41. m. 32 Please it your highnes..to ordeigne..that youre seid suppliaunt and his heires be heires of blode to all their auncestrez and able to enherite..all maner actions auncetrels.
c1475–1600 (a1473) J. Fortescue Declaration in Wks. (1869) I. 530 (MED) His highnes hath now both titles..his auncient title auncestrell as next heire to quene Ysabell, and this new title that was gotene by the forsaid accorde.
1523 J. Fitzherbert Bk. Surueyeng xi. f. 12 These tenauntes maye holde their landes by dyuers tenures..as by..franke almoyne, homage, auncetrell.
?1577 F. T. Debate Pride & Lowlines sig. Bii His cause was good, his title auncestrell.
1607 J. Cowell Interpreter sig. B1v/2 Action is either awncestrell, or personall... Auncestrel seemeth to be that, which we haue by some right descending from our auncester vpon vs.
a1676 M. Hale Hist. Common Law (1713) vi. 131 The Collection of the Customs and Laws of Normandy was made after the Time of King Henry II. for it mentions his Coronation, and appoints it for the Limitation of Actions Ancestrel.
1768 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. III. 186 Another ancestrel writ..to establish an equal division of the land..on the death of an ancestor.
1837 Yale Lit. Mag. June 284 The center table was covered with periodicals, which we inherit by an ancestral claim.
1894 J. M. Lightwood Treat. Possession of Land ix. 156 Formedon in reverter and in remainder were regarded as of the nature of writs of right, but as in possessory actions ancestral the time allowed was fifty years.
1960 F. G. Bailey Tribe, Caste, & Nation ii. 37 He is freeing himself from his dependent position and acquiring land to which he has no ancestral right.
2000 Daily Tel. (Nexis) 18 Nov. 1 Where they once possessed ancestral title to forest and water resources, they now must fight through the courts.
b. In general use.
ΘΚΠ
society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > ancestor > [adjective]
fatherlyOE
fatherenOE
ancestral1579
ancestriala1641
ancestory1650
ancestrian1756
ancestorial1777
progenitorial1825
forefatherly1855
1579 J. Stubbs Discouerie Gaping Gulf sig. Div A faultor prince of Rome..that may be warranted to vs and our heyres for an enemy auncestrell.
1655 J. Howell 4th Vol. Familiar Lett. xi. 29 History is the great Looking-Glasse through which we may behold with Ancestral eyes..actions of ages pass'd.
1659 Sundry Things concerning Univ. Oxf. 4 Neither the Foundation-men, nor ancestoral Gentry being educated so as to be serviceable to the publick.
a1674 O. Bridgeman Rep. Judgments (1823) (modernized text) 428 In our case Sir John Ramsey had no ancestral inheritable blood, and according to the rule nemo dat quod non habet.
1745 Apol. for Welch Knight 7 I got my T—e, as I told you before, on the Merit of ancestral Virtues.
a1796 R. Burns Bk. of Snobs xxvii, in Compl. Wks. (1859) 365 Where the Carabas family have their ancestral carved and monumented Gothic pew.
1816 S. T. Coleridge Kubla Khan in Christabel 57 Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war.
a1854 H. Reed Lect. Brit. Poets (1857) iii. 85 The ancestral position of Chaucer in the annals of our poetry.
1879 T. P. O'Connor Ld. Beaconsfield 235 The extent of their ancestral acres and the splendour of their ancestral halls.
1922 E. F. Scott Epist. to Hebrews iii. 57 Philonism was only one of many attempts on the part of Jewish thinkers to ally their ancestral faith with the results of Greek philosophy.
1958 C. Achebe Things fall Apart xiv. 118 Uchendu took the hen from her, slit its throat with a sharp knife and allowed some of the blood to fall on his ancestral staff.
2005 High Country News 21 Mar. 6/1 Indian tribes are making headlines for taking control of their ancestral lands.
2. Of a thing, concept, etc.: that precedes or gives rise to the invention or development of something; serving as a forerunner, prototype, or inspiration.
ΚΠ
1812 S. S. Smith Lect. Moral & Polit. Philos. I. v. 103 Those common elements of a narrow ancestral tongue, with which so many different tribes would enter on their progressive course, would soon become the smallest portion of their respective languages.
1873 J. Fiske Myths & Myth-makers i. 8 The conclusion is forced upon us that the stories, like the words, are related collaterally, having descended from a common ancestral legend, or having been suggested by one and the same primeval idea.
1889 Gentleman's Mag. Dec. 552 Hassan holds up..a musical instrument, the oldest and simplest ancestral form of harp, or lyre, or guitar, or fiddle.
1921 Aerial Age 12 Sept. 7/1 The undercarriage and the tail unit are constructed from the same component parts.., and in external appearance at least are indistinguishable from those of the ancestral machine.
1994 C. Crossen Tainted Truth (1996) iii. 79 Technology such as early tabulating machinery, ancestral computers, also contributed to the growth of consumer research.
2003 New Yorker 31 Mar. 51/1 ‘Feathery’..refers to the ancestral golf ball, a leather pouch stuffed with feathers that was in play from the Middle Ages to the middle of the nineteenth century.
3. Of, relating to, or constituting an earlier (type of) organism, from which another form has evolved, or from which a domestic animal or cultivated plant has been developed.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > biology > biological processes > evolution > [adjective] > evolutionary ancestor
primitive1846
ancestral1851
protomorphic1855
phylembryonic1890
1851 J. H. Balfour Phyto-theology iii. 191 Thus animals, it is said, with the highest endowments have been gradually developed from ancestral forms of the most limited organization.
1881 W. H. Flower in Nature No. 619. 438 The generalised or ancestral characters of a race.
1911 J. A. Thomson Biol. Seasons iv. 338 The temperature-regulating mechanism was not yet well established in the ancestral mammals.
1988 D. O'Brien Rites of Autumn ii. 30 The degree to which a horse or dog has forsaken its ancestral ways determines its attractiveness to mankind.
2015 J. Warren Nature of Crops vi. 109 Einkorn wheat was once thought to have been one of the three ancestral parents of modern wheat.
Compounds
ancestral being n. Cultural Anthropology and Mythology (a) a mythological figure or entity instrumental in creating or shaping the culture of a people; (b) (in the mythology of some Australian Aboriginal peoples) any of the beings associated with the creation of the earth in the dreamtime (see dreamtime n. 2).
ΚΠ
1881 Macmillan's Mag. Mar. 360/2 In the carrying of the yule log,..we may trace the mythic idea of the carrying down of the celestial Fire and the transport of this ancestral being [sc. Agni] of the sky across the atmospheric stream.
1885 A. Lang Custom & Myth 203 As early as 1655, a witness..saw [Khoekhoe] women worshipping at one of the cairns of Heitsi Eibib, another supposed ancestral being.
1904 B. Spencer & F. J. Gillen Northern Tribes Central Austral. v. 143 Members of each totemic group are the direct offspring of one ancestral being.
1947 Jrnl. Royal Anthropol. Soc. 77 134/1 This place..was an important area for the great..Ancestral Beings..who landed here in the Dreaming era.
1985 Jrnl. Polynesian Soc. 94 141 Genealogies..are the connections between epochs, being the links between the cosmogonic ancestral beings and man, and between man and the figures of tribal history.
2004 V. Strang in A. Bicker et al. Developm. & Local Knowl. vi. 97 Each ancestral myth—or song—describes these journeys in detail: what the ancestral being did, where she or he went, all the events of their travels.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2019; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.1463