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.

The tribe is now grappling with the sudden loss of jobs, along with the dimming of hope that the culturally sacred fish will be restored to their ancestral waters.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 4, 2026

This Safavid-era carpet created for an ancestral shrine in northwest Iran was gifted by J. Paul Getty and is prized for its ornately knotted design featuring lamps and central medallions.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026

Their loved one's ashes are placed inside and the space turned into an ancestral shrine.

From BBC • Mar. 31, 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

Thus, the evidence derived from plant names in modern African languages permits us to glimpse the existence of three languages being spoken in Africa thousands of years ago: ancestral Nilo-Saharan, ancestral Niger-Congo, and ancestral Afroasiatic.

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