as in ancestor
a person who is several generations earlier in an individual's line of descent
the progenitors of today's Maya once ruled a mighty empire that stretched across much of Central America
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Recent Examples of progenitor
By 1900, tonkatsu pork cutlet (progenitor of the katsu sando) had been invented at a restaurant called Rengatei in the ultra-modern Ginza district, which also gave rise to omurice (a phonetic portmanteau of omelet and rice).
—
Betty Hallock, Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2025
Ghetto house became the progenitor of Chicago’s thriving juke and footwork scenes, and artists including RP Boo and the United Kingdom’s Night Slugs collective have taken to social media to pay tribute to DJ Funk and his lasting impact on their work.
—Walden Green, Pitchfork, 7 Mar. 2025
This version of the Democratic Party, which featured the progenitor of wokeism, Obama himself, as the leading presidential campaign trail surrogate for Harris, was thoroughly rejected in November by the American people.
—Newsweek, 7 Mar. 2025
By calculating the positions of nearby stellar clusters through time, the researchers identified two main suspects that could have housed the supernova progenitor.
—Michael Irving, New Atlas, 2 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for progenitor
Betty Hallock, Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2025
Ghetto house became the progenitor of Chicago’s thriving juke and footwork scenes, and artists including RP Boo and the United Kingdom’s Night Slugs collective have taken to social media to pay tribute to DJ Funk and his lasting impact on their work.
—Walden Green, Pitchfork, 7 Mar. 2025
This version of the Democratic Party, which featured the progenitor of wokeism, Obama himself, as the leading presidential campaign trail surrogate for Harris, was thoroughly rejected in November by the American people.
—Newsweek, 7 Mar. 2025
By calculating the positions of nearby stellar clusters through time, the researchers identified two main suspects that could have housed the supernova progenitor.
—Michael Irving, New Atlas, 2 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for progenitor
Recent Examples of Synonyms for progenitor
Noun
-
The banjo itself was invented by our ancestors to bring us together as a spiritual community, stretching from those long gone, all the way to those who haven’t been born yet.—
Essence,
Essence,
29 May 2025
-
While tree-dwelling sloths were out of reach to our ancestors, the large and slow ground animals would have made easy targets.—
Margherita Bassi,
Smithsonian Magazine,
29 May 2025
Noun
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Even more breathtaking than Williams' entrance, though, was her brief scene beside the bed of Jen's dying grandfather, which would ultimately kick off the first of countless tearjerker moments peppered throughout the series.—
Jen Juneau,
People.com,
24 May 2025
-
After his grandfather died a few years later, Pitsaev and his mom moved back to Chechnya.—
Matthew Carey,
Deadline,
24 May 2025
Noun
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That said, Shane Hawkins has stepped into his father’s role in his long-running side project Chevy Metal.—
Andy Greene,
Rolling Stone,
2 June 2025
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Killmonger’s deeper motivation is sadder and less grandiose: His father, the brother of the late king, was murdered by Wakandan agents, forcing Killmonger to grow up alone and exiled from his ancestral homeland.—
Zak Cheney-Rice,
Vulture,
2 June 2025
Cite this Entry
“Progenitor.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/progenitor. Accessed 7 Jun. 2025.
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