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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 rec…

; impetuous. Hath thy fiery heart so parched thine entrails Shak. The fiery spirit of his forefathers. W. Irwing.

An ancestor; a forefather; -- usually in the plural. [Scot.] "Your forbears of old." Sir W. Scott.

ays debts, while idleness or despair will increase them. We are more industrious than our forefathers, because in the present times the funds destined for the maintenance of industry are much greater in proportion to those which are likely to be employed in the maintenance of idleness, than they were two or three centu…

ttered clergy, still chiefly of Roman birth, to reduce to writing the institutes of their forefathers. Milman.

ed or excel in shooting; to shoot beyond. Bacon. Men are resolved never to outshoot their forefathers' mark. Norris.

The first ancestor; a forefather.

An ancestor in the direct line; a forefather. And reverence thee their great progenitor. Milton.

s were rude." Chaucer. He was but rude in the profession of arms. Sir H. Wotton. the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. Gray.

tally mark; hence, a mark, or line, made for the purpose of account. Whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used. Shak.

om ancestors to posterity; the transmission of any knowledge, opinions, or practice, from forefathers to descendants by oral communication, without written memorials.

Fig.: Tissue; texture; complicated fabrication. The somber spirit of our forefathers, who wove their web of life with hardly a . . . thread of rose-color or gold. Hawthorne. Such has been the perplexing ingenuity of commentators that it is difficult to extricate the truth from the web of conjectures. W. Irving.…

Formed into whiskers; furnished with whiskers; having or wearing whiskers. Our forefathers, a grave, whiskered race. Cowper.

say, it were a very dangerous matter if a man in any point should be found wiser than his forefathers were. Robynson (More's Utopia).