forebear

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 17, 2011 is: forebear • \FOR-bair\  • noun : ancestor, forefather; also : precursor Examples: Though several of her male forebears had graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, Tina was the first woman of the family to do so. "Our superstitious forebears used to say: Don't get up on the wrong side of the bed." -- From an article in the Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Massachusetts), April 28, 2011 Did you know? "Forebear" (also sometimes spelled "forbear") was first used by our ancestors in the days of Middle English. "Fore-" means "coming before," just as in "forefather," and "-bear" means "one that is" (not to be confused with the "-bear" in the unrelated verb "forbear," which comes from Old English "beran," meaning "to bear or carry"). The "be-" of "-bear" is from the verb "to be" (or, more specifically, from "been," an old dialect variant of "be"). The "-ar" is a form of the suffix "-er," which we append to verbs to denote one that performs a specified action. In this case the "action" is simply existing or being -- in other words, "-bear" implies one who is a "be-er." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.