How to Use ancestral in a Sentence

ancestral

adjective
Definition of ancestralnext
Synonyms for ancestralnext
  • This part of Wyoming is now part of the ancestral lands of the Eastern Shoshone.
    — Eli Wizevich, Smithsonian Magazine, 11 Dec. 2024
  • The region is also part of the ancestral lands of the native Ute Tribes.
    — Krista Simmons, Sunset Magazine, 13 Oct. 2022
  • But here, there’s pride in the ancestral recipe, made with dry white wine instead of red.
    — Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2021
  • The 300-member tribe has fought to get at least part of their ancestral lands back ever since.
    — Debra Utacia Krol, The Arizona Republic, 18 June 2024
  • In the '90s, the Duwamish took a step toward reclaiming their ancestral lands.
    — Harmeet Kaur, CNN, 20 Dec. 2021
  • Now, plans are being finalized to lay the king to rest in ancestral land.
    — Sean Kingsley, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Oct. 2022
  • Throughout the process, the tribe had full oversight of their ancestral heritage sites.
    — Celina Tebor, USA TODAY, 1 Apr. 2022
  • The star of the space is a mid-18th-century French Baroque chest-on-chest that's flanked by a pair of late Qing dynasty ancestral portraits.
    — Jessica Cherner, House Beautiful, 31 May 2023
  • The food in her kitchen in North Homeland tasted like that of her ancestral homeland.
    — Dillon Mullan, Baltimore Sun, 20 Feb. 2023
  • This fall has been a season of death for the people of my ancestral town of Jerez, Zacatecas.
    — Tribune News Service, oregonlive, 12 Dec. 2021
  • But Matobo is home to many gifts—as an ancestral home of the African Bushmen, the San people, there are over 2,000 sites of rock art to take in.
    — Caitlin Morton, Condé Nast Traveler, 24 Oct. 2023
  • Yavapai-Apache had been purchasing the land parcels since the 1990s with the goal of swapping them to rebuild more of its ancestral lands.
    — Debra Utacia Krol, The Arizona Republic, 4 Nov. 2024
  • Each dish can be a kind of story that reflects the person who eats it—one that attaches a meal to the ancestral.
    — Adrienne Lafrance, The Atlantic, 29 Mar. 2022
  • The canoes were found in a section of lakebed in the ancestral territory of the Ho-Chunk Nation.
    — Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 June 2024
  • The waters of the Jones Falls might have improved enough to trigger otters to return to an ancestral area.
    — Dan Rodricks, Baltimore Sun, 13 Aug. 2024
  • Instead, it's been argued that this moment marked the return of Jews to their ancestral land.
    — Nicole Froio, refinery29.com, 12 Nov. 2023
  • Dam removals, such as the Bloede on the Patapsco in 2018, have allowed the shad to return to their ancestral waters.
    — Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun, 4 Apr. 2023
  • But there is a small crack in the landscape that could bring shattering change to this historic ancestral home.
    — Ernie Cowan, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Jan. 2023
  • Some of the ancestral land became part of Grand Canyon National Park.
    — Felicia Fonseca, The Arizona Republic, 17 Mar. 2022
  • This is the second time in recent years the Wiyot tribe has acquired ancestral lands.
    — Freddy Brewster, Los Angeles Times, 22 Aug. 2022
  • The Spencers, known today as the ancestral line to which Diana, Princess of Wales belonged, were one such family.
    — Allan Massie, wsj.com, 14 Apr. 2023
  • Utes from Colorado and Utah where pushed off their ancestral lands and onto the reservation.
    — Courtney Tanner, The Salt Lake Tribune, 1 Sep. 2023
  • As a Coast Salish person, these places are my ancestral home.
    — Los Angeles Times, 17 Mar. 2022
  • His daughter visited their ancestral homeland for the first time while at the Olympics.
    — CBS News, 17 Mar. 2022
  • This milestone paved the way for the reintroduction of the Lord Howe Island stick insect to its ancestral home.
    — Scott Travers, Forbes, 6 Jan. 2025
  • Many tribes across the country have sought to acquire their ancestral land and co-manage public land.
    — Janie Har, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 June 2022
  • The wave is of great ancestral importance to Native Hawaiians, and respect must be paid and earned.
    — Talya Minsberg Gabriella Angotti-Jones, New York Times, 22 Dec. 2022
  • Athens is under two hours away from his ancestral home near Lake Martin.
    — al, 18 Jan. 2022
  • Trump's border wall construction during his first term as president was criticized by border tribes such as the Tohono O'odham in Arizona for being built in the middle of sacred lands and ancestral burial grounds.
    — Ximena Bustillo, NPR, 29 Jan. 2025
  • Humans have largely lost their ancestral memory of the vital interconnectedness of all life on Earth.
    — Elaine Savory, JSTOR Daily, 24 Jan. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ancestral.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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