See forebear in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "afterbear"
}
],
"etymology_number": 1,
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"2": "fore-",
"3": "beer",
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"t2": "one who is or exists"
},
"expansion": "fore- + beer (“one who is or exists”, literally “be-er”)",
"name": "affix"
}
],
"etymology_text": "Late 15th century, from fore- + beer (“one who is or exists”, literally “be-er”).",
"forms": [
{
"form": "forebears",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
},
{
"form": "forbear",
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"source": "w+disamb"
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"source": "w+disamb"
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{
"ref": "1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 566:",
"text": "One day, among the days, he bethought him of this and fell lamenting for that the most part of his existence was past and he had not been vouchsafed a son, to inherit the kingdom after him, even as he had inherited it from his fathers and forebears; by reason whereof there betided him sore cark and care and chagrin exceeding.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"text": "[1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr.\nSirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold […]"
},
{
"ref": "[1936] 2004, Raymond William Firth, We the Tikopia http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=Eiji-EnuhXUC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&sig=aB2VV0fcWv6lkQPQatQQbDhlm_8",
"text": "One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group."
},
{
"ref": "1960 December, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 776:",
"text": "THE LONDON BRIGHTON & SOUTH COAST RAILWAY. By C. Hamilton Ellis. Ian Allan. 30s. [...] In the course of its pages the author runs through the whole gamut of the locomotives that have during the period under review run on the rails of the L.B. & S.C. and its forebears.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1997, H. L. Hix, Understanding W. S. Merwin:",
"text": "Beginning with the bald declaration “I think I was cold in the womb,” the speaker in “The Forbears” then decides that his brother (who died soon after birth) must also have been cold in the womb, like his grandfather John and the forbears who antedated John.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:",
"text": "Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.",
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"An ancestor."
],
"id": "en-forebear-en-noun-8k~PgPRi",
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[
"ancestor",
"ancestor"
]
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "predšestvenik",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "предшественик"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "ascendent"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "antecessor"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "avantpassat"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zǔxiān",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "祖先"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zǔzōng",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "祖宗"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "voorvader"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "ancêtre"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Vorfahr"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Ahn"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Vorfahre"
},
{
"code": "hi",
"lang": "Hindi",
"roman": "pūrvaj",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "पूर्वज"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "antenato"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "kauwheke"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "tipuna (plural is tīpuna)"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "tupuna (plural is tūpuna)"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "kauheke"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "tauheke"
},
{
"code": "pdt",
"lang": "Plautdietsch",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Väavoda"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "antepassado"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "predšéstvennik",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "предше́ственник"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "prédok",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "пре́док"
},
{
"code": "es",
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"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
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},
{
"code": "es",
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"masculine"
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{
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"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "awo"
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{
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"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
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{
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "prédok",
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"tags": [
"masculine"
],
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},
{
"code": "cy",
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"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "hynafiad"
},
{
"code": "cy",
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"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "cyndad"
}
]
}
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"sounds": [
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"ipa": "/ˈfɔːˌbɛə/",
"tags": [
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]
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{
"ipa": "/ˈfɔɹˌbɛɚ/",
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"word": "forebear"
}
{
"etymology_number": 2,
"forms": [
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"form": "forebearing",
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{
"form": "forebore",
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"pos": "verb",
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{
"word": "forbear"
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],
"id": "en-forebear-en-verb-kAHSmaJe",
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"word": "afterbear"
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"Terms with Plautdietsch translations",
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"Terms with Spanish translations",
"Terms with Sranan Tongo translations",
"Terms with Swedish translations",
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"t2": "one who is or exists"
},
"expansion": "fore- + beer (“one who is or exists”, literally “be-er”)",
"name": "affix"
}
],
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"tags": [
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},
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"lang_code": "en",
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"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
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{
"ref": "1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 566:",
"text": "One day, among the days, he bethought him of this and fell lamenting for that the most part of his existence was past and he had not been vouchsafed a son, to inherit the kingdom after him, even as he had inherited it from his fathers and forebears; by reason whereof there betided him sore cark and care and chagrin exceeding.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"text": "[1906] 2004, Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, Ethel Wedgwood tr.\nSirs, I am quite sure that the King of England's forbears rightly and justly lost the conquered lands that I hold […]"
},
{
"ref": "[1936] 2004, Raymond William Firth, We the Tikopia http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=Eiji-EnuhXUC&pg=PA345&lpg=PA345&sig=aB2VV0fcWv6lkQPQatQQbDhlm_8",
"text": "One does not take one’s family name therefrom, and again the position of the mother in that group is determined through her father and his male forbears in turn; this too is a patrilineal group."
},
{
"ref": "1960 December, “New reading on railways”, in Trains Illustrated, page 776:",
"text": "THE LONDON BRIGHTON & SOUTH COAST RAILWAY. By C. Hamilton Ellis. Ian Allan. 30s. [...] In the course of its pages the author runs through the whole gamut of the locomotives that have during the period under review run on the rails of the L.B. & S.C. and its forebears.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1997, H. L. Hix, Understanding W. S. Merwin:",
"text": "Beginning with the bald declaration “I think I was cold in the womb,” the speaker in “The Forbears” then decides that his brother (who died soon after birth) must also have been cold in the womb, like his grandfather John and the forbears who antedated John.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:",
"text": "Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An ancestor."
],
"links": [
[
"ancestor",
"ancestor"
]
]
}
],
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"ipa": "/ˈfɔːˌbɛə/",
"tags": [
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]
},
{
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"tags": [
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"code": "bg",
"lang": "Bulgarian",
"roman": "predšestvenik",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "предшественик"
},
{
"code": "ca",
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"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "ascendent"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "antecessor"
},
{
"code": "ca",
"lang": "Catalan",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "avantpassat"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zǔxiān",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "祖先"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zǔzōng",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "祖宗"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "voorvader"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "ancêtre"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Vorfahr"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Ahn"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Vorfahre"
},
{
"code": "hi",
"lang": "Hindi",
"roman": "pūrvaj",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "पूर्वज"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "antenato"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "kauwheke"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "tipuna (plural is tīpuna)"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "tupuna (plural is tūpuna)"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "kauheke"
},
{
"code": "mi",
"lang": "Maori",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "tauheke"
},
{
"code": "pdt",
"lang": "Plautdietsch",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "Väavoda"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "antepassado"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "predšéstvennik",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "предше́ственник"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "prédok",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "пре́док"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "ancestro"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "antepasado"
},
{
"code": "srn",
"lang": "Sranan Tongo",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"word": "awo"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "förfader"
},
{
"code": "uk",
"lang": "Ukrainian",
"roman": "prédok",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "пре́док"
},
{
"code": "cy",
"lang": "Welsh",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"feminine",
"masculine"
],
"word": "hynafiad"
},
{
"code": "cy",
"lang": "Welsh",
"sense": "ancestor — see also ancestor",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "cyndad"
}
],
"word": "forebear"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English verbs",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"en:People",
"en:Time"
],
"etymology_number": 2,
"forms": [
{
"form": "forebears",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "forebearing",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "forebore",
"tags": [
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "foreborne",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "forebears",
"2": "forebearing",
"3": "forebore",
"4": "foreborne"
},
"expansion": "forebear (third-person singular simple present forebears, present participle forebearing, simple past forebore, past participle foreborne)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"alt_of": [
{
"word": "forbear"
}
],
"categories": [
"English obsolete forms"
],
"glosses": [
"Obsolete spelling of forbear."
],
"links": [
[
"forbear",
"forbear#English"
]
],
"tags": [
"alt-of",
"obsolete"
]
}
],
"word": "forebear"
}
Download raw JSONL data for forebear meaning in English (8.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (7c21d10 and f2e72e5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.