as in ancestor
a person who is several generations earlier in an individual's line of descent
our forefathers bought this farm, and our family has worked it for three generations
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Recent Examples of forefather
Markus — whose great-great-great-grandfather invented the nutcracker doll — makes nutcrackers for a living, as did each of his forefathers who descended from the great inventor.
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Elaina Patton, IndieWire, 15 Dec. 2025
The military forefathers of the Valley must have been horrified at the hippies their children became, though by the eighties the arc of flower power had bent toward the common ground of Wall Street.
—Literary Hub, 21 Nov. 2025
The original maps, with all due respect to the forefathers of FEMA, were kind of done on paper and crayon.
—Alaa Elassar, CNN Money, 18 Nov. 2025
Earlier this year at Coachella, funk forefather George Clinton gifted Leon Thomas a custom hat, lauding him as one of the contemporary torchbearers of the genre.
—Kyle Denis, Billboard, 24 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for forefather
Recent Examples of Synonyms for forefather
Noun
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In October 2024, the lab firm used genealogical mapping, in which unidentified DNA is traced to relatives and ancestors to produce a more precise genetic profile and possible identity, to point to Contreras, according to the affidavit.—
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Over ten million years ago, long before the human species existed, our hominid ancestors adapted to metabolize alcohol.—
Noun
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The gift is fitting, not just because Farley runs Ford, but his maternal grandfather, Emmet Tracy, was an early Ford employee who built Model T's.—
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In 1993, Tom and his wife, Cathy, welcomed a son, making Knotts a grandfather for the first time.—
Noun
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Boley's father, Jameson Kyle Boley, 40, of Jasper, Alabama, has been charged with felony chemical endangerment of a child and unlawful manufacture of a destructive device, according to Walker County District Court records obtained by Fox News Digital.—
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And the father and son eventually fell out.—
Cite this Entry
“Forefather.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/forefather. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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