ur-ancestor

See also: Ur-ancestor

English

Alternative forms

• Ur-ancestor

Etymology

From ur- +‎ ancestor.

Noun

ur-ancestor (plural ur-ancestors)

1. An original ancestor; proto-ancestor.
   • 2003, Confucius, translated by Edward Slingerland, Analects: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries, translation of original in Old Chinese:

     Often the ancestors were asked to intercede with the being who wielded the greatest power of all over the Shang people, the ur-ancestor known as the “Lord on High” (shangdi).

   • 2006, Lesley Brill, Crowds, Power, and Transformation in Cinema:

     In both, the first awareness of other creatures by the ur-ancestor (and therefore the first true self-consciousness) arrives through a feeling of a crowd on the skin.

   • 2011, Dr. Gareth Dyke, Gary Kaiser, Living Dinosaurs: The Evolutionary History of Modern Birds:

     These two lineages converged somewhere in the late Paleozoic or early Triassic in a common “Ur-ancestor.”

Anagrams

• antecursor, currantoes, raconteurs