ancestral

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.

For the first time in more than 80 years, the fish swam in their ancestral river, where they had once been abundant.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 4, 2026

Now in her 80s, Lami Ezekiel remembers construction crews arriving in her ancestral home in Maitama, as it was destroyed to build Nigeria's capital, Abuja.

From BBC • Apr. 3, 2026

“There are a lot of politics around the Persian origin,” said Al Hussein, who is Emirati of ancestral Persian origin.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026

By comparing how these gene clusters are arranged across hundreds of plant genomes and tracing their patterns from ancestral species to modern plants, they were able to detect conserved elements that earlier methods had missed.

From Science Daily • Mar. 14, 2026

That fulfills part of our definition of plant domestication, as the genetic modification of an ancestral plant in ways that make it more useful to consumers.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond