FOREFATHER

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does forefather mean? 

• FOREFATHER (noun)
  The noun FOREFATHER has 2 senses:

1. the founder of a family

2. person from an earlier time who contributed to the tradition shared by some group

  Familiarity information: FOREFATHER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FOREFATHER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The founder of a family

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

father; forefather; sire

Context example:

keep the faith of our forefathers

Hypernyms ("forefather" is a kind of...):

ancestor; antecedent; ascendant; ascendent; root (someone from whom you are descended (but usually more remote than a grandparent))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "forefather"):

patriarch (any of the early biblical characters regarded as fathers of the human race)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Person from an earlier time who contributed to the tradition shared by some group

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Context example:

our forefathers brought forth a great nation

Hypernyms ("forefather" is a kind of...):

predecessor (one who precedes you in time (as in holding a position or office))

 Context examples 

That am I; and the son of Edric the Socman, of the pure blood of Godfrey the thane, by the only daughter of the house of Aluric, whose forefathers held the white-horse banner at the fatal fight where our shield was broken and our sword shivered.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)