Auncestre

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic Middle English spelling of ancestor, meaning a person from whom one is descended, such as a forebear or grandparent
2. A Middle English term for a forefather or progenitor, someone in the family line who came before one in earlier generations
3. An obsolete form of the word for a remote parent or early relative from whom a later family line has descended

Etymology: "Auncestre" is the Middle English spelling of "ancestor," and it reached English through Old French "ancestre," which came from Latin "antecessor," literally "one who goes before." The Latin parts are "ante," "before," and "cedere," "to go," so an ancestor was first and foremost a predecessor, someone who walked ahead on the path. The sense of a family forebear grew out of that idea of going before in time. The word's spelling was unsettled for a long time. The Middle English form with "au" reflects the French spelling of the period, and the "c" was later reshaped to match the Latin original, which is why modern English has "ancestor" rather than "auncestre." Forms like "ancessour" and "auncetour" also circulated in medieval texts, so the spelling you see here is one of several competing versions.