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Ancestor   Listen
noun
Ancestor  n.  
1.
One from whom a person is descended, whether on the father's or mother's side, at any distance of time; a progenitor; a fore father.
2.
(Biol.) An earlier type; a progenitor; as, this fossil animal is regarded as the ancestor of the horse.
3.
(Law) One from whom an estate has descended; the correlative of heir.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ancestor" Quotes from Famous Books



... Our Villa's on the South edge of the Island, by the Broken Cliffs. Most of it is three hundred years old, but the cow-stables, where our first ancestor lived, must be a hundred years older. Oh, quite that, because the founder of our family had his land given him by Agricola at the Settlement. It's not a bad little place for its size. In spring-time violets grow down to the very beach. I've gathered sea-weeds for myself and violets for my ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... There was nothing emotional or "enthusiastic" in it—no breath of Wesley or Wilberforce; but rather something drawn from deep wells of history, instinctive and invincible. Had some direct Calvinist ancestor of hers, with a soul on fire, fought the tyranny of Bossuet and Madame de Maintenon, before—eternally hating and resenting "Papistry"—he abandoned his country and kinsfolk, in the search for religious liberty? That is the ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... them and renewing my acquaintance with those games of my youth, marbles, and mumbledy-peg, the which I learned from my great-uncle-seven-times-removed, Cain, in the days when with my grandfather, Jared, I used to go to see our first ancestor, Adam, at the old farm just outside of Edensburg where, with his beautiful wife Eve, that Grand Old Man ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs

... as Sir Joseph Yorke, Ambassador at the Hague. He died Lord Dover. A fourth son, John, married Miss Elizabeth Lygon, of Madresfield. The fifth son, James, entered the Church, became Bishop of Ely, and was the ancestor of the Yorkes of Forthampton. I had the luck many years ago to have a talk with an old verger in Ely Cathedral who remembered Bishop Yorke, and who told me that he used to draw such congregations by the power of his oratory and the breadth of his teaching, that when ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury

... him be thankful, and manifest the same by grateful speech and due humility; he were a dog, else, and the heir and ancestor of dogs." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Henleigh Mallinger did when he married Miss Grandcourt. But then, why had he never heard Sir Hugo speak of his brother Deronda, as he spoke of his brother Grandcourt? Daniel had never before cared about the family tree—only about that ancestor who had killed three Saracens in one encounter. But now his mind turned to a cabinet of estate-maps in the library, where he had once seen an illuminated parchment hanging out, that Sir Hugo said was the family tree. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... this man, who, after receiving great favors from the Nabob, is not satisfied with oppressing his offspring, but goes back to his ancestors, tears them out of their graves, and vilifies them with slanderous aspersions. My Lords, the ancestor of Sujah Dowlah was a great prince,—certainly a subordinate prince, because he was a servant of the Great Mogul, who was well called King of Kings, for he had in his service persons of high degree. He was born in Persia; but was not, as ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... at these words, gave a smile. "Venerable ancestor," she replied, "were you also to go, it would be ever so much better; yet I won't feel quite ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... types of marital relations by making possible more rapid replacement of men lost in war, and so increases the chance of social survival. By establishment of descent in the male line it conduces to political stability; and, by making possible a developed form of ancestor-worship, it ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... named, without any ceremony, after some ancestor or famous Manbo, or occasionally receives a name indicative of something which happened at the time of the birth. He is treated with the greatest tenderness and lack of restraint. As he grows up he learns the ways of the forest, and about the age of 14 he is a full-fledged little man. If the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... hair was heavy, it is true, but its thickness and weight seemed naught but an ungrateful burden; and she had a dull, soft eye. In private she was fond of reading such romances as she could procure by stealth from the library of books gathered together in past times by some ancestor Sir Jeoffry regarded as an idiot. Doubtless she met with strange reading in the volumes she took to her closet, and her simple virgin mind found cause for the solving of many problems; but from the pages she contrived ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... usually made on the koran, or at the grave of an ancestor, according as the Mahometan religion prevails more or less. The party intended to be satisfied by the oath generally prescribes the mode and purport ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... very generally. The Dakotahs worship both sun and moon. The Delaware and Iroquois Indians sacrifice to these orbs, and it is most singular that "they sacrifice to a hare, because, according to report, the first ancestor of the Indian tribes had that name." But, although they receive in a dream as their tutelar spirits, the sun, moon, owl, buffalo, and so forth, "they positively deny that they pay any adoration to these subordinate good spirits, and affirm that they only ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... slave to him. "Oh! do not despise me for my feebleness! I have lived in the palace. I can wind like a viper through the walls. Come! in the Ancestor's Chamber there is an ingot of gold beneath every flagstone; an underground path leads ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... not make it known while he lived.[30] Under the influence of this feeling on the part of their father, the family kept the facts to themselves and a few confidential friends until after the lapse of a century, when the time came to commemorate the achievements of their ancestor. ...
— The Jefferson-Lemen Compact • Willard C. MacNaul

... which Sir Walter Scott, in his Marmion, has immortalized. The Scotch commanders, Lenox and Argyle, both perished, as well as the valiant King James himself. There is scarcely an illustrious Scotch family who had not an ancestor slain on that fatal day, September 9, 1513. But the victory was dearly bought, and Surrey, the English general, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, was unable to pursue ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... the Southern leaders throws light upon Calhoun's principle. Than Robert E. Lee, what general has been more idolized by those who knew him best? His first ancestor in America was a cavalier who left England rather than endure the tyranny of Charles II. The son of "Light Horse Harry" of Revolutionary fame, he loved the Union. Educated at West Point, he left the institution after four years ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... over his hairy cheeks. "I expect I do look like a prehistoric ancestor. I'll see what I can do about it. I set my own leg; I guess I can shave myself. You're a great doctor, Wilhemina. You knocked that cold up to a peak, all right. But—I don't believe you'd better ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower

... In his domestic arrangements he was the very figure of a bachelor. His slimsy silver spoon, dented with toothmarks of an ancestor who had died in a delirium, was laid evenly by his plate. The hand lamps on the shelf wore speckled brown-paper bags inverted over their chimneys. A portrait of a man playing the violin hung out, in massive gilt, over the table, like a ship's figurehead ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... away, and Hathersage, our next stage, was where he was buried. We were very much interested in Robin Hood and Little John, as my name was Robert, and my brother's name was John. He always said that Little John was his greatest ancestor, for in the old story-books his name appeared as John Nailer. But whether we could claim much credit or no from the relationship was doubtful, as the stanza in the old ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... he knew he should not relinquish it soon. There swept back into his mind the story of the marriage of his ancestor, Red Godwyn, and he laughed low in spite ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... it is a duty in me to recover Armenia and Mesopotamia, which were wrested from my ancestor by deliberate treachery. That principle was never admitted by us which you with exultation assert, that all successes in war deserve praise, without considering whether they were achieved by ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... written Praleigh, a common corruption of "Prowley" in the sixteenth century) susceptible of the clearest proof? There were, in fact, few distinguished Englishmen of the present day, who, if a provoking ancestor or two could be unearthed, might not be shown to have the Prowley fluid in their veins. To many of these eminent personages the head of the American branch of the family had written, and with several he had succeeded in establishing a correspondence. Old sermons, moral ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... added portions. There were fascinating traditions connected with the place; secret rooms walled up since the Middle Ages, a private stair whose entrance, though undiscoverable, was said to be somewhere in the orchard to the west of the ancient chapel. It had been built by an ancestor of Sir Lionel who had flourished in the reign of the eighth Henry. At this point in his reminiscences (Smith had an astonishing memory where recondite facts were concerned) ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... for sure that he was a relative of mine," said the captain. "It was more than two centuries ago; but if he were not, I wish he had been. It would be an honor to have him for an ancestor. Adelante!" ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... the sake of a success that is doubtful! And the name that I bear? Rameau! It is not with talents as it is with nobility; nobility transmits itself, and increases in lustre by passing from grandfather to father, and from father to son, and from son to grandson, without the ancestor impressing a spark of merit on his descendant; the old stock ramifies into an enormous crop of fools; but what matter? It is not so with talents. Merely to obtain the renown of your father, you must be cleverer than he was; you must have inherited his fibre. The fibre ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... here, and why he had come to awaken them from their repose, and disturb the dust which had been collecting for years. It seemed to the Prince as if he heard this inhospitable question quite clearly uttered by the lips of his ancestor Albert Achilles, before whose picture he was just passing, and whose large, glittering eyes seemed to look out in defiance. Frederick William stopped and looked at his forefather with a sad smile. "I have come much against my will, Elector Albert Achilles," ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... long lord Azem or Hassan. By different European writers his name has been corrupted into Unsun Cassan, Uxun-Cassan, and Usum- Chasan. He was a Turkman emir of the Ak-koyunla dynasty, or white sheep tribe, whose ancestor, the governor of a province under the descendants of Timor, had rendered himself independent in the north and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... this Alexander the seventh ancestor 108 was that Perdiccas who first became despot of the Macedonians, and that in the manner which here follows:—From Argos there fled to the Illyrians three brothers of the descendents of Temenos, Gauanes, Aeropos, ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions, the oboe and clarinet. These instruments are sounded by being blown in at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the flute it is the result of the impinging of the air on the edge of the hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... thy pardon," he said, "but methought thou spoke in the language of Sir Henry Hudson, my ancestor?" ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... worthy sweltering in the heat of the forward hold of the Maggie II, for he was busy getting his guns on deck. From which it will readily be deduced that B. McGuffey, Esquire, was following the advice of his paternal ancestor and getting ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... which the main practical question of the selection and proper use of books rests, is not what is good in general, or in special literature, but what is fitted for each individual man. And to discover this the man himself, or his immediate ancestor, the youth or boy, must be examined. The foundation of success in any sphere of life is physical and mental, nervous and moral aptitude; and those who have to direct, or to decide for, or to advise the young respecting ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... pray observe. The Brookes of the King's Elms gained their enormous wealth as army contractors, during the struggle with Napoleon, and their baronetcy, Heaven knows how! The baronetcy of the Brooks of Brookcotes dates from 1615, at which time my maternal ancestor, Sir Roger Brook, knight, procured his patent by supplying thirty infantry for three years in the subjugation of Ireland. Independently of the title, our family is many centuries older than the other. We spell our ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... composition of a child), there are commonly thirty progenitors to be taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely admitting of proof, are told us respecting the inheritance of disease or character from a remote ancestor. We can trace the physical resemblances of parents and children in the ...
— The Republic • Plato

... and the accounts of that underground world, which, with so many races, is the habitation of the souls of the departed. Dr. Callaway has already drawn attention to this point in connection with the ancestor-worship of the Amazulu.[B] He says, "It may be worth while to note the curious coincidence of thought among the Amazulu regarding the Amatongo or Abapansi, and that of the Scotch and Irish regarding the fairies or 'good people.' For instance, the 'good people' of the Irish have assigned to them, ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... nearly fifty, who was as unresolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated. How could he be the parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself. He was not a parent. A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, but the spirit had not come from him. The spirit had not come from any ancestor, it had come out of the unknown. A child is the child of the mystery, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... out of the graceful instinct of a gentleman, raise an honorable monument in the great fane of Christendom over the remains of the enemy of his dynasty, Charles Edward, the invader of England and victor in the rout at Preston Pans—Upon whose head the king's ancestor but one reign removed has set a price—is it probable that the grandchildren of General Grant will pursue with rancor, or slur by sour neglect, the memory of ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville

... brought the Replegiare against Richard, the son of John, saying that he had tortiously taken his beasts in the wood of the Abbat of Horwede, formerly the forest of King Henry, by whom it was given as a chace to N., ancestor of Richard." ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell

... even this concession will not be of much use to direct our practice, unless it be determined, who are those that are born to poverty. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after generation, only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is in itself cruel, if not unjust.... I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The privileges of education may sometimes be improperly bestowed, but I shall always fear to withhold them, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... The long wish of the heart is not often denied. We are not responsible for it. The only conspiracy I have plotted here, was that I did not oppose most natural occurrences, all drawing towards this scene. My magic was hope and humility. I dared to wear my ancestor's hat in the face of a contemptuous and impertinent provincial public, and it gave me the pride to persevere till I should bring it home to honors and to noble shelter. If you despise my ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... Cambridge by a bencher who heard him repeating Homer as he worked. Of actual members of eminence, Lincoln's Inn numbers almost as many as the Inner Temple. Sir Thomas More among these comes first, but his father, who was a Judge, should be named with him. The handsome Lord Keeper Egerton, ancestor of so many eminent holders of the Bridgwater title, belonged to Lincoln's Inn during the reign of Elizabeth. The second Lord Protector, Richard Cromwell, was a student here in 1647, and Lenthall, his contemporary, was Reader. A little later Sir Matthew Hale, ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... from which Nurhachu never recovered; his chagrin brought on a serious illness, and he died in 1626, aged sixty-eight. Later on, when his descendants were sitting upon the throne of China, he was canonised as T'ai Tsu, the Great Ancestor, the representatives of the four preceding generations of his family ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... insult which had been hurled at him. He considered himself as at least the social equal of any member of the Government, for he claimed descent from the old Irish kings, and on one or two occasions when more than ordinarily exhilarated he had even been known to refer to his ancestor, Brian Boru. Yet, for all this mendacious and vainglorious boasting, Collins was a man of unquestionable ability, and when fully aroused could write a paragraph well calculated to make the ears of his enemies to tingle. His nationality was clearly indicated by his personal appearance, his features ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... lower the nobility of your nature by a sentiment so much beneath you? Was not that bold Manco-Capac, whom his patriotism placed in the rank of heroes, your ancestor? There is a noble part left for a valiant man, who will not suffer himself to be overcome by an unworthy passion. Have you no heart to regain ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne

... knife he made a scratch around the sunstreak on the floor, took the shine of it three times into the fold of his kirtle"—his pocket, we should say nowadays—"and went his way." Eventually he became king of Macedonia, and ancestor of Alexander ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin

... "The best thing for us to do is for us to get a thorn and stick your little finger." So they truly stuck her finger, and the little baby popped out like popped corn. [273] "What are we going to name it?" they said. "The best name is Galinginayen, for it is the name of the ancestor of the people who live in Kadalayapan," said the alan. Gamayawan gave him a bath and he grew about one span, for she used her magic. Not long after the baby was large, for she always used her magic when she bathed him. [274] Not long after the ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole

... odd," Mr. Pennington went on, "the tricks heredity plays, and that this young man and Augustus McAllister should both hark back to a common ancestor for their general characteristics of build and feature. I was ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard

... look of his name, was of a good British stock, from Wales or the Welsh borders. At the beginning of the fourteenth century an ancestor of his, Hugo Hakelute, sat in Parliament as member ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... hatred; and the other a young adventurer alike unconnected with his race, in blood or in love; a being ruling all things by the power of his own genius, and reckless of all consequences save his own prosperity? If the future had been revealed to my great ancestor, the Lord Valerian, think you, Vivian Grey, that you and I should be walking in ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... Socrates looked to his "demon" for guidance; Themistocles consulted his oracle; a President of the United States visited a clairvoyant, who consented to act as a medium and interpret the supernatural. This idea, which is a variant of ancestor worship, still survives, and very many good people do not take journeys or make investments until they believe they are being dictated to by Shakespeare, Emerson, Beecher or Phillips Brooks. These people ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... by many hands. In his capacity of king of England, it is not our province to judge him in this place. As stadtholder of Holland, he merits unqualified praise. Like his great ancestor William I., whom he more resembled than any other of his race, he saved the country in a time of such imminent peril that its abandonment seemed the only resource left to the inhabitants, who preferred self-exile to slavery. All his acts were certainly merged ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... won his plunder in the southern seas was lying under the island's lee while the famous pirate was burying a part of his booty on its shore. It is said that the proprietor of the island has still in his possession a piece of gold cloth given to his ancestor by Captain Kidd. Soon afterward Gardiner's Island was visited and plundered by Paul Williams and some of his buccaneering associates. In 1728 these seas swarmed with the pirates of Spain, and one night in September of that year the crew of a schooner landed upon Gardiner's Island, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... it will not do to set out the carefully tended tree, for an apple tree from seed will not be a tree like its parent, but will tend to resemble a more distant ancestor. The distant ancestor that the young apple tree is most likely to take after is the wild apple, which is small, sour, and otherwise far inferior to the fruit we wish to grow. It makes little difference, therefore, what kind of apple seed we plant, since ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett

... in the land," said Pak Chung Chang, sadly. "But it shall be as you wish, so long as my ancient and very-much-to-be-respected ancestor's nose ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... "weeping and crying, she sought again with groans the son she had brought forth with groans." She prayed for a long time; then, worn out with sorrow, she slept. The porter of the chapel, without knowing it, watched that night not only the mother of the rhetorician Augustin, but the ancestor of an innumerable line of souls; this humble woman, who slept there on the ground, on the flags of the courtyard, carried in her heart all the yearning of all the mothers of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... these stories of the antique time. Of what age the stories are, nobody knows,—those who listened to them in their childhood, to relate them in turn in their declining years, least perhaps of all. For they are a part of the inheritance common to all the races that have sprung from the Asiatic ancestor, who, at periods the nearest of which is far beyond the ken of history, and at intervals of centuries, sent off descendants to find a resting-place in Europe; and it is one great object, if not the principal object, of the original collectors and the translator of these tales to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... yore, his ancestor Michael was accused, so now Hersh was assailed with reproaches of all kinds. In the synagogue they shouted at him that he did not observe the Sabbath, that he was friendly with gojs (any man who does not follow Judaism is a goj), ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... worked pretty diligently upon the railroad, and promises to start the cars by the middle of next summer. Then we may fly from Essex Street to State Street, and be back again before Time misses us. In conjunction with our worthy mayor (with whose ancestor, the Lord Mayor of London, Time was well acquainted more than two hundred years ago) he has laid the corner-stone of a new city hall, the granite front of which is already an ornament to Court Street. But besides these public affairs, Time busies himself a good deal ...
— Time's Portraiture - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Though due punishment was meted out to Agag, in a sense it came too late. Had he been killed by Saul in the course of the battle, the Jews would have been spared the persecution devised by Haman, for, in the short span of time that elapsed between war and his execution, Agag became the ancestor ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... descent from any crowned head to whom you may have taken a fancy. One correspondent assured me only this month that he had papers in his possession showing beyond a doubt that I might claim a certain King McDougal of Scotland for an ancestor. I have misgivings, however, as to the quality of the royal blood in my veins, for the same correspondent was equally confident six months ago that my people came in direct line from Charlemagne. As I have no desire to “corner” the ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... west. From this place, as they looked toward the islet, the three rocks seemed so close together that they appeared blended, and the three sharp, needlelike points appeared to issue from one common base. This circumstance had an encouraging effect, for it seemed to the brothers as though their ancestor might have looked upon those rocks from this point of view rather than from any other which had as yet come upon the field ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... that Master Rabbit got into great trouble. The records of the Micmacs say that it was from his stealing a string of fish from the Otter, who pursued him; but the Passamaquoddies declare that he was innocent of this evil deed, probably because they make great account of him as their ancestor and as the father of the Wabanaki. Howbeit, this is the way in which they tell ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... come to provide a suitable funeral for one of its members, because to bury the dead without the proper display would not only be to "lose face" but subject them to the possible persecution of the angered spirits. This is only one of the pernicious results of ancestor worship and it is safe to say that most of the evils in China's social order today can be traced, directly or indirectly, to this ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... had come to see that with it all he was detached from those desirable things which had produced him. One knew that Wayne had traditions, yet he was not tradition fettered; he suggested ancestors without being ancestor conscious. Was it the gun—as Wayne the Worthy persisted in calling it—and the gun's predecessors—for Wayne always had something—made him so distinctly more than the mere result of things which had formed ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... too poor to tempt invasion, too far from the sea to grow rich by commerce, like the Phoenicians. Their obscurity, poverty, and unheroic qualities were their salvation, and these they derived apparently from Jacob, their ancestor. ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... vengeance of the king, and dismissed him without ransom. But he was unable to guard him from other penalties of his rashness, being the heavy fines by which he was impoverished, according to Henry's mode of weakening his enemies. The good knight did what he might to mitigate the distresses of my ancestor; and their friendship became so strict, that my father was bred up as the sworn brother and intimate of the present Sir Hugh Robsart, the only son of Sir Roger, and the heir of his honest, and generous, and hospitable temper, though not equal to him ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... depraved descendant of a corvine ancestor; you grey-headed old miscreant," exclaimed the blackbird, who had been to look at the prisoner, "what have you done with ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn

... a Trevilian, an ancestor of the old Cornish family of that name, who only just escaped with his life from this deluge. He had foreseen what was coming and had removed his farm stock and his family from his Lyonesse estate, and was making one ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various

... turn away from reality, Droozle," admonished the artist. "Things are not nearly so bad as they used to be anyway. In all justice, shudder and tilt requires far less body-English than its ancestor, rock and roll." ...
— Droozle • Frank Banta

... member of the family, yet without compare Sir Conolly, commonly called, for short, amongst his friends, Sir Condy Rackrent, was ever my great favourite, and, indeed, the most universally beloved man I had ever seen or heard of, not excepting his great ancestor Sir Patrick, to whose memory he, amongst other instances of generosity, erected a handsome marble stone in the church of Castle Rackrent, setting forth in large letters his age, birth, parentage, and many other virtues, concluding with ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... The Commentator excludes from the operation of the harsh rule in this 20th sloka, an heir, who is supposed to deny his ancestor's debt or liability through ignorance; but he attempts to justify the rule itself by ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... of a very ancient booke remaining in the hands of the right worshipfull M. Thomas Tilney Esquire, touching Sir Frederike Tilney his ancestor, knighted at Acon in the Holy land for his valour, by K. Richard the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... and others have made cultures of beets from wild localities in order to discover a hypothetical common ancestor of all the present cultivated types. These researches point to the B. patula as the probable ancestor, but of course they were not made to decide the question as to whether the origination of the several now existing types had ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... the mastery of science and the mastery of the sword. So the Germans were called of God to instil fear and reverence into the hearts of the inferior races. That was the purpose of the First World War under my noble ancestor, William II. ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... reasons did not influence the conversion of Doctor Rizal's paternal ancestor, Lam-co (that is, "Lam, Esq."), for this Chinese had a Chinese godfather and was not married ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... wasn't ultra-exacting and she suited him, and the fact that she was the sole heir to millions was the least of the sailor's considerations as he dropped his nickel down the slot. Neither did the identity of the young lady's paternal ancestor constitute a problem, despite the recent interview with that variable individual. Matt regarded Cappy somewhat in the light of a mixed blessing; while he respected him he was a little bit afraid of him, and just at present ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... descended the oath of fealty to him and his descendants. The people had made a god of him, and now, romantic as it seemed, it was beginning to be an open secret that some persons believed that a descendant had been found—a Fedorovitch worthy of his young ancestor—and that a certain Secret Party also held that, if he were called back to the throne of Samavia, the interminable wars and bloodshed would ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... come from one who is even now considering setting forth on a five-year excavating contest in search of the remains of our gibbering ancestor, the ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill

... a thing more to be proud of that one's father should have made a great tunnel and railway like that, than that one's remote ancestor should have built ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... one would pat the neck of his war-horse, which was pawing for him to mount; and well did that sword deserve his trust, for though it was his all, a king's ransom would not have purchased it. It had been the sword of his greatest ancestor, and possessed the charm of giving to the arm of its wearer the strength of every ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child

... our sovereign. The proportion of silver to gold was fixed as thirteen or thirteen and a third to one; and if the weight of a silver shekel was made as thirteen to ten, such a coin would correspond very nearly to our florin.[14] Half a silver shekel was a drachma, and this was therefore the true ancestor ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... law," replied Hokosa bitterly; "but if the law were the king's will, the decision would be otherwise. This man has slain, not a snake, but that which held the spirit of an ancestor, and for the deed he deserves to die. Hearken, O King, for the business is larger than it seems. How are we to be governed henceforth? Are we to follow our ancient rules and customs, or must we submit ourselves to a new rule and a new custom? ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard

... the other leg," replied the young Englishman. "The house has a claim on us, for hospitality. We paid it in part to old Spencer Forsyth—he was my revered ancestor's friend—when he came over to England after the war. Got a portrait of him now at Guenn Oaks. Straight, lank, stern, level-eyed, shrewd-faced old boy—regular whackin' old Yankee type. I beg your pardon," ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... William's English earldom of Huntingdon, which had been forfeited, was restored, in 1185, and was conferred by William upon his brother, David, the ancestor ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... hurt him again. Now he felt much comfort where he sat; the night was really cold, bitingly cold, and it was a glorious fire. As he sat before it and basked in its radiance he felt the glorious physical joy that must have thrilled some far-away primeval ancestor, as he hugged the coals in his cave after coming in ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Canst thou blame De Vallance for catching my coronet before it fell to the ground by a false attainder? Why should the title lie in abeyance? Is it not better worn by one allied to our house than by an alien? Who so fit to sit in the baronial chair of our common ancestor as my sister's son, now I am ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... rejoicing king (Thy ancestor, O Liege!) proceeded straight Unto that river's brink, which floweth pure Through the Three Worlds, mighty, and sweet, and praised. There, being bathed, the body of the king Put off its mortal, coming up arrayed In grace celestial, washed from soils of sin, From ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold

... as Professor Huxley has observed, more remarkable from its being known in most cases that the affected person had not married one similarly affected. In such cases the child of the fifth generation would have only 1-32nd part of the blood of his first sedigitated ancestor. Other cases are rendered remarkable by the affection gathering force, as Dr. Struthers has shown, in each generation, though in each the affected person had married one not affected; moreover such additional digits are often amputated ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... handsome house in the clean and ancient town of Bretton. Her husband's family had been residents there for generations, and bore, indeed, the name of their birthplace—Bretton of Bretton: whether by coincidence, or because some remote ancestor had been a personage of sufficient importance to leave his name to his neighbourhood, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... divine mother of thy magnanimous ancestor AEneas be full of favor to thee, as the son of Maia was kind ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... useful to his employers, especially during the negotiation of the Treaty of Carlowitz, that after the execution of Brancovano he managed to secure the succession to the throne of Wallachia (1716) for his son Nicholas Mavrocordato, and became the ancestor of a long line of rulers in ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... clock—a duplicate of the one at the bank—and two bronze candelabra flanking each end, and then on the portraits of the dead and gone members which relieved the sombre walls—one in a plum-colored coat with hair tied in a queue being no other than his own ancestor. He wondered to himself where lay the charm and power to attract in a place so colorless, and he thought, as was his habit with all interiors, how different he would want it to be if he ever became a member. His fresh young nature revolted at the dinginess ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... relation, &c. A commission to a descendant of Dr. Franklin, besides being in consideration of the proper qualifications of the person, should add, that of the great services rendered by his illustrious ancestor, Benjamin Franklin, by the advancement of science, by inventions useful to man, &c. I am not sure that we ought to change all our names. And, during the regal government, sometimes indeed they were given through adulation; but often also as the reward of the merit of the times, sometimes for ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... barbarian invasions and the records of monkish litigations, instead of contemplating the illustrious deeds of Greek sages and Roman heroes, I confidently reply that it is more useful to a man to know his own father's character than that of a remote ancestor. Even in this quiet retreat," he went on, "I hear much talk of abuses and of the need for reform; and I often think that if they who rail so loudly against existing institutions would take the trouble to trace them to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... worthy to be loved was Stanley Thane. He could not claim a titled ancestor, Nor boast of any blood but Puritan. His father was successful on exchange, Reaped fortune by a rise in merchandise, Now sent his partner son with Dalton Earl Toward the claspless girdle of the South. And Stanley Thane was all that makes true men; High thought, high purpose, ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey

... the attention of a jealous government was aroused, and a legislative act finally obtained, forbidding all similar accumulations. This act, however, did not prevent young Ellison from entering into possession, on his twenty-first birthday, as the heir of his ancestor Seabright, of a fortune of four hundred and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... Cho-Sen are fanatical ancestor-worshippers, and that old pirate of a booty-lusting Dutchman, with his four cunies, in far Kyong-ju, did no less a thing than raid the tombs of the gold-coffined, long-buried kings of ancient Silla. The work was done in the night, and for ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... was born at Little Beckford, in Bedfordshire, in 1673. His family had long possessed a considerable estate, with a good house, at Lambertoun in Devonshire. The ancestor from whom he descended in a direct line received the arms borne by his descendants for his bravery in the Holy War. His father, John Rowe, who was the first that quitted his paternal acres to practise any part of profit, professed the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson



Words linked to "Ancestor" :   ancestor worship, antecedent, root, ascendent, relative, ancestress, forefather, primogenitor, father, sire, descendant, forebear



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