progenitors

noun

plural of progenitor
as in ancestors
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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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of progenitors Watching their metronomic thriller does more to suggest the arrival of a hyper-sexualized answer to the Coen brothers than the progeny of William Gibson or the progenitors of multiplex psychedelia. — Nick Newman, IndieWire, 1 June 2026 Its story of five girls — all navigating preteenagerdom under the stewardship of their tragically well-meaning white dads — stands firmly on its own legs, even staring down some of its progenitors. — Sara Holdren, Vulture, 20 May 2026 To get to the bottom of things, though, the team behind the new research examined the host galaxies and environments of LFBOTs to try to pin down what the progenitors of these explosive events could really be. — Robert Lea, Space.com, 8 May 2026 In a scene following the triumph of successfully creating a human blastocyst outside the womb, IVF’s three progenitors face the Medical Research Council. — Literary Hub, 29 Apr. 2026 The key to calculating the amount of energy blasted out is realizing that the mass of a merger’s resulting black hole is not simply the sum of its progenitors. — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 13 Feb. 2026 Somewhere in Africa there is a city, town, or village where Henry Fordham’s progenitors lived and died for hundreds or thousands of years, where my distant relatives walk the streets today. — Eugene Robinson, The Atlantic, 3 Feb. 2026 Mamdani was born in Uganda to Indian parents, and Duwaji in Texas to Syrian Muslim progenitors. — José Criales-Unzueta, Vanity Fair, 2 Jan. 2026 Skye and Billy’s progenitors, by contrast, are revealed to have been free-spirited and independent-minded people who simply left out lots of their complicated, peripatetic story. — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for progenitors
  1. ancestors
  2. grandfathers
  3. fathers
Noun
  • The changes would have affected the environments in which life developed and evolved, from the age of the dinosaurs through to some of our oldest primate ancestors.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 13 Oct. 2026
  • In his view, Flagg Mountain’s fire-scarred stumps corroborate what his community already knew—that their ancestors used fire for centuries—and reinforce their sense of responsibility to care for the land.
    — M. R. O’Connor, New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2026
Definition of ancestors
Noun
  • His grandfathers are former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr and Tom Curtis, an All-America defensive back for the Wolverines, and his brother is Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 19 Sep. 2026
  • Nearly a century after his great-grandfathers played college football, USC freshman defensive lineman Luke Wafle is emerging as a generational talent.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 17 Sep. 2026
Definition of grandfathers
Noun
  • Those girls in the hothouses maintained by fathers and uncles certainly would not spare a single thought for Percherette.
    — Yiyun Li, New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Nearly every player on the team is a dad, with seemingly a few players becoming first-time fathers each of the past few seasons.
    — Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 10 Oct. 2026
Definition of fathers

Browse Nearby Words

progenitor
progenitors
progeny
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Cite this Entry

“Progenitors.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/progenitors. Accessed 18 Oct. 2026.

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