What does ancestral mean?
Word: Ancestral
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Ancestral means belonging to, or handed down from, the members of your family who lived long before you.
Word origin: From Latin antecessor, through Old French.
How do you spell ancestral?
Syllables: an - ces - tral
Tricky part: Students expect a vowel before the r and write ancestoral or ancesteral, but the t and r run straight together.
Watch out for: ancestoral, ancesteral
Memory tip: When you reach the r, add nothing: no vowel slips in front of it, just as none does in orchestral.
Ancestral in a sentence
Example 1: Every summer we visit our ancestral house in a small village near Udupi.
Example 2: The old brass lamp in our hall is an ancestral treasure that has passed through five generations.
Example 3: Meera's grandfather told her stories about the ancestral fields his own grandfather had farmed.
Fun Fact
Scientists use this word too: the ancestral horses of about 50 million years ago were forest animals no bigger than a medium-sized dog.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell Spies
Choose the pair which has a spelling error:
a) orchestral : music
b) coastal : road
c) ansestral : home
d) annual : report
Show answer
c) ansestral : home. A c, not an s, makes the sound after an in this word; nothing is wrong in the other three pairs.
Word Twins
Read both sentences and choose the correct option:
1. After many years in Delhi, Ravi moved back to his ancestral village near the Godavari. 2. Riya drew a chart of her ancestral, going back five generations to her great-great-great-grandmother.
a) both
b) neither
c) only 1
d) only 2
Show answer
c) only 1. Ancestral describes a noun such as village; Riya's chart shows her ancestry, which is the noun.
Word Puzzle
Match the words with their meanings:
1. ancestral 2. descendant 3. heirloom a. linked to the people your family came from b. a valuable object that a family has passed down for many years c. a person related to someone who lived long ago
a) 1-a, 2-b, 3-c
b) 1-a, 2-c, 3-b
c) 1-b, 2-c, 3-a
d) 1-c, 2-a, 3-b
Show answer
b) 1-a, 2-c, 3-b. Ancestral points back to earlier family members, a descendant comes later, and an heirloom is a treasured object passed down.
Word Tally
Give 2 marks for each correctly spelt word. How many marks in all?
ancestral, generation, heritige, tradition, legasy
a) 4
b) 8
c) 2
d) 6
Show answer
d) 6. Heritage ends in age and legacy has a c, so three words score 2 marks each.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Raghav's ancestral home is the house where ___.
a) his cousin is studying now
b) he hopes to live one day
c) he went on a school trip
d) his great-grandparents grew up
Show answer
d) his great-grandparents grew up
2. An ancestral tradition in a family might be ___.
a) a recipe the family has cooked for a century
b) a song that became popular last month
c) a game the class made up this morning
d) a rule the school added this term
Show answer
a) a recipe the family has cooked for a century
