ancestry

• ancestrie (obsolete)
• auncestrie (obsolete)
• auncestry (obsolete)

From Middle English auncestrie, from Old French ancesserie. See ancestor.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈæn.sɛs.tɹi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

ancestry (plural ancestries)

1. The state of being ancestors
2. birth to a noble or high-ranking family, or to someone of honorable descent.
   • August 1 1713, Joseph Addison, The Guardian volume 123

     Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: SSV Normandy:

     Tali: My people place a high value on family and ancestry. There's an unspoken expectation that I'll live up to my father's example.

3. A series of ancestors; the people from whom one is descended

   Synonym: lineage

   I can trace my ancestry back to the 18th century.

• provenance

• ancestor
• ancestral

• “ancestry”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.