ante-, ant-

1. Anyone from whom someone else is directly descended; especially, somebody more distant than a grandparent.
2. An animal or plant from which a species has evolved.
3. A device that was an earlier form of a modern invention or was used as a basis for developing it; such as, an object, idea, style, or occurrence serving as a prototype, forerunner, or inspiration to a later one.
4. A person from whom an heir derives an inheritance.
5. Etymology: from Old French ancestre or Modern French ancętre which is from Late Latin antecessor, "predecessor"; literally, "foregoer"; from Latin antecessus, past participle of antecedere, "to precede", from ante-, "before" + cedere, "to go, to give way".

1. Inherited or inheritable by established rules of descent; usually legal rules.
2. Of, belonging to, inherited from an ancestor, or relating to something belonging to former generations of someone's family.

1. A reference to a series of ancestors or progenitors.
2. A lineage, or those who compose the line of natural descent.

A woman from whom a person is descended.

1. The former generations of someone's family.
2. Inherited properties shared with others of a person's bloodline.