MEANING
The people and family origins from which a person is descended.
Use it for
describing a character’s family origins; tracing a line of descent across generations; distinguishing ancestral history from personal identity or present allegianceLocates a character within a line of descent while allowing the narrative to question what that history does or does not determine. Writing functions: Memory / Inheritance.
Words that belong together
- trace one’s ancestry
- family ancestry
- people of mixed ancestry
On the page
She could trace her ancestry through parish registers, but not the story attached to the missing name.
Their shared ancestry did not give them a shared memory of the town.
Word forms
- Base
- ancestry
Usage notes
Usually uncountable: ancestry. Ancestries is possible for different lines or types of descent. Common patterns: trace one’s ancestry, of mixed ancestry. Register: neutral. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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