forefather
/ˈfɔːfɑːðə
/noun (usually one's forefathers)
1A member of the past generations of one’s family or people; an ancestor: the duchy which her forefathers had ruled since the tenth century...
- Generations of his forefathers had worked as miners, loyal to the union and at major risk of terrible injuries as they worked the kingdom's coal seams.
- Like their forefathers, the present generation also has to put up with the stench.
- Otho's father, three times mayor of Exeter, was John, and his forefathers in four preceding generations were all either John or William.
Synonyms
forebear, ancestor, predecessor, progenitor, father, grandfather, parent, grandparent;
antecedent, forerunner, precursor
rare primogenitor
1.1A precursor of a particular movement: the forefathers of modern British socialism...
- These bands are the forefathers of this movement.
- It was a seminal collection of work, and he was a forefather to the surrealist movement, as I later found out, and was deeply influential to Marcel Duchamp.
- Take, for example, the fact that while Lovecraft is usually described as a forefather of modern horror fiction, his stories are, to put it bluntly, not very scary.