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Webster 1913 Edition
Forefather
Fore′faˊther
(?; 277)
, Noun.
One who precedes another in the line of genealogy in any degree, but usually in a remote degree; an ancestor.
Respecting your
forefathers
, you would have been taught to respect yourselves. Burke.
Forefathers’ Day
, the anniversary of the day (December 21) on which the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620). On account of a mistake in reckoning the change from Old Style to New Style, it has generally been celebrated on the 22d.
Webster 1828 Edition
Forefather
FOREF'ATHER
,Noun.
Definition 2024
forefather
forefather
English
Noun
forefather (plural forefathers)
- Ancestor.Wp
- 1907, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “chapter II”, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 4241346:
- His forefathers had been, as a rule, professional men—physicians and lawyers; his grandfather died under the walls of Chapultepec Castle while twisting a tourniquet for a cursing dragoon; an uncle remained indefinitely at Malvern Hill; an only brother at Montauk Point having sickened in the trenches before Santiago.
-
- Cultural ancestor; one who originated an idea or tradition.
Translations
ancestor
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