ancestor

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It challenges the long standing idea that animals inherited a single core antiviral system from a common ancestor and instead points to multiple evolutionary solutions for resisting viral infections.

From Science Daily • Jun. 30, 2026

Researchers also found that these influential genetic sequences emerged before modern humans and Neanderthals split from a common ancestor, pushing the origins of language-related biology further back in time than previously recognized.

From Science Daily • Jun. 12, 2026

I teach my students about Didion’s ancestor, Nancy Hardin Cornwall, who trekked westward with the Donner-Reed party in 1846.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 2026

Congress created the Tenth Circuit in 1929, and it added the ancestor of the D.C.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 31, 2026

The parents of a child provided, on average, half the content of that feature; the grandparents, a quarter; the great-grandparents, an eighth—and so forth, all the way back to the most distant ancestor.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee